This is a post hat I've been meaning to write for a while now, I just could never find the right words to fully explain what I wanted to say.
People keep asking me what I do, what's my job? etc. I then give them a list of things that I do, after all, I'm not a one trick pony. I tell them I do casual work as a runner in the live event/entertainment industry, not the sporting type,but backstage stuff. I'm a small business owner, an artist. Most people are like "Oh, that's cool". But sometimes, and most annoying (especially if it's a family member- yes this really happened), they come back with "So not a real job then". Of course being an artist is a real job. Just because it doesn't run 9 til 5 with a desk and a pot plant for company in a cubicle, doesn't make it any less hard work or any less of a job. I've slowly come to the conclusion that the reason that people think art isn't a real profession is because they don't know what it means to be an artist.
This is very much a topic that I feel very strongly about, and I tend to find that the only people that understand where I am coming from are creative /artistic types; I am yet to find someone of a different mindset that can truly understand. This is my attempt at trying to explain the whole "What it means to be an artist" for the simple reason that I seem to be having this conversation a lot lately and I'm tired of repeating myself.
This feels like it could be a rather long post, and may even have the potential to become a bit of a rant. I promise that I'll try to contain my frustrations. Feel free to share your opinion in the comments below or even over on Twitter (see right hand column).
So part of what really prompted this post was the below image (Credits to the owner, I love you and want to hug you!). I came across this on my Google plus stream and at the time it covered, quite nicely might I add, some things that had been going on / had happened to me and other people that I know that do "creative" work.
To be an artist (to me) means: Be crazy. Be weird. Be a freak. Embrace the chaos. Have opinions. Speak your mind and don't be afraid of what people are going to think of you. To laugh, to live, to love. To hate. To think big and dream bigger. To live and breathe your work. To be prepared to suffer for your art. To just. Be. YOU.
Why? Because you can; and there is not a single person on this planet, that has the right to stop you. You only get one shot at life, so make it count. Live it in your own awesome crazy way. If that means creating chaos, artistic or otherwise, in order to be happy, then do it.
However, there are, for some bizarre reason that I can't fathom, people who believe that art should be free. Whether this art is a painting, drawing, sculpture, dance, book or song.
I would like to take a moment to say that I will never see eye to eye, or be friends with these people, because they are WRONG.
What people maybe don't realise is that art takes time; and time is money. But time isn't even the important part, or at least not the part that infuriates me to no end. (I'll have you know the items in the Dead With Tequila store would be a lot more expensive if we added on the cost of the time we spent creating things.) As an artist, creative person, whatever term you wish to use, you give a little bit of yourself in your art. Whether that be your love, your pain, your heart, your blood, sweat, or tears. All of that is worth something. For someone to tell you that they're not prepared to pay for your art, is like being told that you're not worth anything. And if you're not worth anything, then what's the point? Why bother getting out of bed?...Bother doing anything.
"To the world you may be one person; but to one person you may be the world." -Dr Seuss
We are all worth something to someone, therefore so is art.
The standard way of setting a price for art work is a bit like this:
Set your hourly rate
Total cost of materials used e.g. Cost of paint, canvas, etc.
If it's for a commission you might charge just for taking it on.
So hypothetically, if someone commissioned a painting you might work out the cost like this:
Number of hours spent : 30 hrs
- at £15 per hour = £450
Total cost of materials: £250
Commission fee: £50
450+250+50= £750
Some people would leave it at that others might add on a few
more random pound just as extra profit.
So this hypothetical painting costs at least £750 minimum. Some people would like it for £0.
Is anyone starting to see why I find this topic mildly infuriating???
If all this wasn't bad enough, after they tell you they're not going to pay for your work, they then, albeit occasionally, ask you to justify why you created something in the first place.
So here's the second big question: What's the point of art?
This tends to be the point where I personally do one of two things. 1) put my head in my hands while feeling exasperated and sorry that the poor fool in front of me is clearly clueless; 2) walk away accepting that I'm fighting an uphill battle that I've already lost. - It really depends on the fool.
Simple answer......There is no point.
Art doesn't have to be justified, it just has to be. I, as the artist, don't need a reason to create something. I don't have to have an opinion of my work either; because at the end of the day what I think doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if I love it or hate it, because the only opinion that really matters is your's. The viewer. I'm not here to tell you what to think, just to make the cogs start turning and prompt some kind of thought. I would rather you take something meaningful to you personally and for a connection with a piece, than me tell you what you're suppose to think and it mean nothing at all and make no sense.
Art is made in order to express and inspire. Not to dictate and command that specific feelings and ideas are felt.
So, in short;
I am an Artist. This is not just a job, but my life. Art is not free.
My art is Me. And I am my Art.
