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Midterms are here, the holiday's are quickly approaching, and there's no time to slow down. Before we start our new art unit my class is doing a few quick responses to some popular art, articles. Yesterday my teacher gave us this minimum wage artist article to read, and reply to, but I had no internet, so I'm doing it today!
So to sum it up, if you didn't read the article, it's basically this one guys opinion on how artists need to be paid more. People take advantage of artists starting there career, and pay them brutally. The author, Noah Bradley, wants to bring attention to this issue, and bring it to an end. He says that being an artist is a job, and artists should be paid like any other job.
Now what do I think of this? How does this article contrast with what I know about artists?
We've all heard of starving artists, but we've also all heard of millionaire artists selling each piece for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Is this unfair? I don't know. I agree that some artists probably get taken advantage of. But doesn't everyone at some point? Should you rely on society's standards, or should you create your own and live by them? I think that every artist should be shown this article, every artist should know there rights, and feel comfortable talking about money with there employer. I don't however, necessarily blame the employer for underpaying artists. If you can get a good job done for cheap, why not? Why would someone pay more money for something than they need to?
When I was younger, I used to babysit a lot. I watched these 2 kids, and there parents would pay me 5$ and hour, I thought it was awesome. I then stared babysitting this other family the paid me 8$ an hour for watching 2 kids. I informed the other family that my rate had gone up and they said they wouldn't pay more then 5$ an hour, so I told them that I couldn't babysit for them any more. A few days later I saw those two kids with another babysitter, but did I feel bad? No, because my time was worth more than that.
If you don't stick up for yourself people will take advantage of you. And, while starting out and making a name for yourself, artists may have to take a few bad gigs. It is there choice what jobs they decide to take. It is completely within there rights to ask for more, but it is also completely within there employers rights to decline them what they ask. Is this fair? Probably not. But that's life, life isn't fair, life takes hard work, and to get what you want takes time, effort, failures, and if your lucky, success. Becoming an artist is risky, if one is ready to take a leap of faith and take that risk, then by all means, they should do it, but they shouldn't expect everything to be given to them. They must accept the fact the they may not make it to the top, the most there pieces ever may be worth could be 100$. This sucks, but it's the reality.
You decide what you are willing to settle for, and if your not willing to settle for less than 100,000$ a painting, then you will either work your butt off, make connections, and work your way to the top, or fail. The payout can be huge, but it can also be nothing. I think that that is something artists must realize.
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