Insecurity in the Creative Community
Starting out in the professional sphere is no small feat; when in your 20s, earning money becomes more than just an add-on. There is a sense of fear that actively permeates at every step you take, be it the fear if failing, not being able to sustain yourself, or simply the fear of not making enough money as your peers.
Coming from the art community, I have seen this fear actively inhabit the creative space, be it upcoming creative entrepreneurs, agencies or freelancers, and translate into a constant insecurity in the artist. This insecurity is attached to losing out on income, losing out on clients, being unable to keep up with the physical and emotional demand of the work, and most importantly, of the work not being sustainable.
Combined with a lack of business training, this feeling more often than not has made the community prone to losing out on more than they signed up for. As an example, Harsh, who has just started out with his formal graphics designing work takes up an assignment at half the price of its worth since he was afraid the client will pass the work to someone else. For Harsh, having a steady income flow helps him pay his rent, cover the fuel expense and ensure that he’s able to lead a basic lifestyle. It is for these that he is willing to discount his work ethic, and settle for a cost that makes him feel cheated.
Going below your minimum acceptance rate and underselling yourself seem hardly viable in the long run. Imagine a scenario six months later where Harsh has had considerable experience and is looking to increase his price. The same customer, however, will not be comfortable paying a higher amount for a similar work from the same service provider. Compromising on the price sure did not help in the present case !
Here’s another manner in which this insecurity presents itself. I once found myself in a very tempting situation, of covering a film festival that had quite distinguished panelists. The pay was lower than what I usually charge however the event promised an opportunity to engage and connect with established players in my profession. The call to cover the event came in the morning of the first day, and I quickly mailed a list of deliverables and terms for the work. Upon receiving a go ahead, my team covered the event on multiple days, and did get to interact with some big names. Fast-forward to receiving the final payment and submitting the final product; the organiser, a woman of considerable experience in the creative industry, started finding spurious faults in the work and threatened to withhold the payment. Things took a turn for the worse when I, along with two colleagues, was asked to visit her residence-cum-workplace and collect the dues. We were confined in the house for over four hours, and subjected to a string of verbal abuses. The situation was exacerbated further by an acute lack of alertness in the police, who cowed down to the high-pitched bulling of this person, and failed to let us out. The entire situation accounted for over three days of back-and- forth travel to the police station in trying to register a FIR, and a preceding week of threats to my career and reputation made on call.
In hindsight I consider it a watershed event, as it has allowed me to reassess my engagement with the clients. I have been more alert in the projects I take up, and make it a point to not be swayed by the silver-coated baits they come along with. This brings me to the next point of my learning, which is the importance of investing in a formal transactional framework.
As an upcoming creative, it is all-too- tempting to forego the need for a proper contract and other equitable practices, taking a percentage as advance payment, for instance.
That one lucrative opportunity to work for a bigger brand or a higher amount should not result in your paperwork going for a toss, or even agreeing to work on terms which are skewed against you.
Working on a business, it is important to negotiate for your worth. While the art community is easy to buckle under the pressure from mounting competition, there is a prevailing conception that as a rule, clients seek the cheapest deal. A client invests a portion out of their capital in a creative work, and to a great extent it is expected that they want a value product for their money. It is impossible to rule out the possibility of them understanding your work’s value if you explain the why of it. Breaking down the cost to the constituent variables, and explaining how you bring something extra on board is likely to do the job. Unarguably, it does command the artist to come out of the insecure space and be confident on the work they produce.
Writing about the art community’s insecurity, there is the realisation that it is due in a large part to the community’s own lack of unionisation. While there have been small groups to promote the creative process, their efforts are far too sporadic to tie the multifaceted community together. In the current form, it is difficult to arrive at a definite solution primarily because there is always an inflow of insecure people who are willing to forego on the community’s ethics.
Taking from my experience of the worst kind of manifestation of the result of this insecurity, I constituted the Indian Creative Forum (ICF) as a space for safeguarding the creative community’s interest by providing legal resources and industry-specific contracts, build community engagement through experts-backed discussions, and managing the entire work-flow for a creative professional. ICF is my attempt to give back to a community of which I continue to be a part, and build on my best and worst engagements to provide an experience that re-negotiates the conventional interactions in the creative domain, and allows the creatives as well as the businesses to engage in a powerful, ethical and time-bound manner.
Co writer : Rajshree Sharma
