art as work

I like the idea that art is labor intensive, whether this be a novel, a cd, a painting, a film, whatever. Aside from my poor hearing issues I don’t like going to concerts because they are less precise/intensive and more expensive than the accompanying cd. I don’t necessarily want making art to involve a lot of painful toil and emotionally depleting effort, but I do expect an investment of time. Writing a play in forty-eight hours is an interesting exercise, but this condensed schedule should also preclude it from being taken too seriously.

So another artist was telling me that whenever they do a public painting event they try to produce a piece of work every half an hour and sell that piece for thirty five dollars.

This prompted a lot of conflicting emotions in me.

Like: “And people buy them?” “Yes,” the artist assures me, “I sell most of them”.

And I think, Well good for you. And then I think, You’re a schmuck. You are ripping people off. How dare you charge people that much for something that you invest so little time in.

And then I think, this artist has been working for fifteen or twenty years, so that experience should be factored into the price. And if people like the work and want to pay for it, then charge whatever the market will bear.

And then I think, Wait seventy dollars and hour. I can’t justify anyone making that much money, let alone an artist. I am a bit of a socialist in this way, but that’s a tangent for a different day.

But this artist doesn’t make this kind of wage consistently, they’re not making a hundred and twenty five grand a year, they only do a couple of these events a year and who am I to begrudge an artist getting a five hundred dollar day a couple times a year.

I charge less than three dollars an hour for my paintings, less than half of minimum wage. Making minimum wage is a long-term goal for me. Who’s wrong here? Am I an idiot or is this person a con artist.

But this is an established, mid-career artist who has worked up to this point, and I’m just hoping to have a solo show maybe eventually, it’s only fair that it be this unfair.

It should probably give me something to aspire to. Instead I make pledges to myself that I will never charge this much. I would rather go without food for a day than charge more than two thousand dollars for anything I make. And I feel (perhaps pretentiously) assured for a little while.

And then I have to pay some bills. And later I think I am going to make a huge painting, four by four feet (not really huge by most people’s standards). I do the math on the square inches and at my current three dollars an hour or less wage it will probably price out at thirteen hundred fifty. Which seems like a ridiculous amount of money to charge for it. But it will take me at least three to four months of solid work to complete.

And then I start to think I should charge more.