Art/Money #3 - am/am not
Apologies up front - this is a rambly one and sort of covers a lot of ground without doing very much.
As an artist, if you want to make a living, you can work a day job, work in the arts (say as a gallery staffer or curator), work as a practitioner (a photographer taking photos of a wedding for $) or try to sell your work.
If we focus on that last one, I think it's an interesting thing, as a lot of emphasis can be put on selling. Classically, artists hate it and, generally, it's not something that sustains many people financially.
If a print of my work sells for, I don't know, $1000 that's a big chunk of money but (and here's the but) - how many might I sell in a year? It's a big pay day once or twice a year and, when it gets down to it, not really much over a 12 month period. But if I sold something for $100 - maybe I could sell 10? In my experience that's also very optimistic. Not that many people actually want THAT many prints. How much wall space do you really have? But even if I sold 10 and made $1000 it's still not much money, over a 12 month period. Still, I'd prefer the 10 at $100 because I prefer accessibility over exclusivity. I like Keith Harring who wanted everyone to see what he did, I like that. I think it's good. More, a larger audience, a bigger pie, a more generous spirit.
Still - I don't think I sell 10 prints a year, but then I don't work that hard at it and, frankly, I'm also not sure it means that much. I like things like T-shirts and post cards, I have a wall full of that stuff and 1/2 my t shirts have art shit on them. I'd rather enjoy looking at a few post cards every single day then one big print just once or twice a day. I like a bit more, not a bit less.
That's one of the reasons I've enjoyed making and selling books. One they are easy for people to actually have and store - it's way easier to store 50 books than 50 prints. Secondly, a lot more people can have them and, thirdly, I think they're pretty fun to make whereas prints have never excited me that much. Sometimes an artist I love will put up a print for sale and it's like $750 and that's not THAT much in terms of print cost (especially if comparing to, say, painting), but still - it's not something I feel like I can afford. I wonder if selling that one $750 print felt better than 3 $250 prints? Maybe so, I don't know.
I think about this a lot because I'm never going to be the sort of person who takes pictures for money. I realised this a few months ago when one of my co-workers shoved a camera in my hands and said 'you're a photographer, take a picture' and I wanted to say 'no, I'm really not'. I don't take party photos, I don't like fake smiles and celebratory Cheshire cat grins, I don't put people at ease, it's just not what I do. I'm like, finding ways to be weird and build little worlds. I think I'm relatively articulate but when someone asks me about the art I make I just have to show them, I really don't know how to describe it. But what I could have said is 'this isn't what I do, it's like asking a Hollywood director to make a Tik Tok vid - just different things'.
So maybe one of the reasons I think and write a lot about art and money is because I've sort of shut myself off from some avenues of making an income from being creative, therefore if I ever do want to strike out and work for myself, I have to be even more confident that I can bring in money from other places. Selling work is always rare (I don't think many people sell even, say, 10 prints a month) - so there's temptation and discussion of upping prices. If one's only going to sell 4 prints a year, why not have larger pay days?
But this also conflicts with what I value: I want more people to enjoy what I do rather than fewer. Being driven only by profit is pointless.
I recently had a flight kerfuffle and the airline refunded me not with money but with 4 free flights on their network. A friend said 'oh go to Darwin cause those flights are the most expensive, so you're getting the most value'. What an insane idea - what the fuck am I going to do in Darwin? That only works if you assume that you'd have an equally good time in each place (and I wouldn't), and regardless I don't care about maximising the 'free' ticket - I just want my holiday as planned.
So circling back to art. I doubt I'll ever be an artist that sells many big expensive prints, and even if I was I don't think I'd like that - I still really love when someone at an art fair buys a $20 poster, or a friend nabs something cheap. I think I prefer that, honestly. The most expensive print I've ever sold was about $550 and, like, that's cool, but I think I felt better seeing friends frame $20 posters I sold them and things like that.
I guess my point is what I am is someone that's in this for his own reasons and that comes first. The challenge is then to work out how the rest fits around it, but there's so little chance of monetary success in this area one may as well ensure that they feel proud of the way they do things. That's the only thing you can really control.
Next week we'll have a bit of a number deep dive from the past financial year :) - if you're not interested in seeing cost/profit break downs then, please, you're welcome to skip.
August will be back to things much more whimsical and meandering.