What happens when people want your art, but don’t want to pay for your art?
Few people work as hard as artists. People have a misplaced idea of what being an artist is, that creating art involves: a glass of wine, a sunny day in a field, an easel with a few brushes. I suppose this is true for the hobbyist and the artists who were born into wealth.
However, the art world expands beyond champaign galleries and soirees of the public’s fertile imaginations. In truth, in order to survive as an artist you find yourself being many things. You’re a graphic designer, you’re a photographer, you’re a carpenter, you’re a cleaner, you’re a writer, you’re a business person, you’re so many things.
And because of the capricious nature of the market, our consumers, our customers, our clients, our audience, we find ourselves playing the jack-of-all-trades at literally all trades.
You find yourself awake at three in the morning, for the third morning in a row, putting together a document for a person you know will try to wriggle out of paying for your work. “Why should I pay for this?” they ask. As if they didn’t ask for it in the first place.
You see, the thing is that society has grown to love art, but not artists. Society wants what we make, but isn’t willing to support the people who make what society wants. Artists are responsible for the cup you’re drinking out of. Artists are responsible for the clothes you’re wearing. Artists are responsible for the music you’re listening to, the chair you’re sitting on, the design of the device you’re reading this on. The work we do is everywhere.
I’ve worked in nearly every art industry there has been. From digital to oil paintings, from playing on stage to garden design. I’ve gone where the money was and in every industry the excuse is always the same. Oh, people want what we’re offering. They just don’t want to pay. Or people jump through extraordinary hoops to get out of paying you.
I played at a gig at this restaurant where we said that we would fill the restaurant with people for the gig and the owner told us that he was leaving and he only gave us one waitress, an understaffed kitchen, whom he expected us to pay for the evening out of our takings. This after he said that he wouldn’t pay us, but we had to take money at the door. This wasn’t the arrangement that we had agreed upon. But what could we do. We passed a hat for the poor waitress who obviously couldn’t deal with a restaurant full of people. People we told weeks prior that they could come and watch us play at a restaurant while ordering food and could expect service.
I get roped into doing graphic design work for a billboard which needed to be redesigned in a very small amount of time for an event. I had to download my own version of the software the company used for their files so I could see the original document that I needed to redesign. I made my own icons, my own maps, my own directions. I sourced licence free fonts. Redesigned a massive map on a printable scale for a large billboard and I did all of this in a matter of hours. Redesigning work from the ground up so that it could be used. And when I sent my bill, I got told to explain why it took me so long and give the company I was charging an hour by hour breakdown to explain to them why it would cost them this much. I had to explain myself to this company, why my work was valuable. Nevermind that if I didn’t do it, I don’t know what they would have done.
I get called into doing a rehearsal shoot and a wedding that is 200 kilometers away from my home and get told, when I arrive at the wedding on the second day that they can’t pay me the balance of what they owe me. When I said that it meant that I would have to leave and they wouldn’t get their photos and they could not get their non-refundable deposit back, they threatened to kill me. Even though these were the terms we had agreed to, as per contract they signed.
And the problem is that artists are desperate. If we don’t do the work, someone else will. So we put up with a lot of abuse. What else can we do?
I see friends of mine being designers who make particular items and then watch megacorporations steal those designs and sell them as their own. I see these designers complaining bitterly, but nobody is listening. See the case with the fashion brand Zara stealing designs.
We even have this online auction industry in which companies post jobs for which artists will all bid for the job with already done work hoping that their work will be paid for. If your work isn’t selected, you don’t get paid. Work you’ve done, hours you’ve put in, doesn’t get rewarded.
This is a problem. Artists can’t live like this. If you can’t afford art, don’t waste an artist’s time. Don’t try and steal artist’s work, or time, or efforts, or ideas. Don’t try and con us.
And for the people who want something we made, who then start insulting our work hoping we’ll give it to you for cheaper: I hope you get run over by a car in the street.
