It's gonna be a little bit of a rant, here, so be prepared or go do something else, if you're not feeling up to my yammering.
About my so-called art career...I feel like I'm between a rock and a hard place, or more accurately, swimming up-stream. Art is all I know how to do with any sort of expertise, and even that's a bit dubious. My dilemma is the whole freelance set-up. I'm not a commercial arts person; I draw and paint. I can't figure out how to make that pay off, w/o committing massive amounts of time to creating the quality of work that will make me proud and lead to bigger projects, and still earn a fair wage. Why won't anyone pay more than $100 for quality book covers or ccg cards? I don't get it. I mean, I DO get it: if you can wrangle a great image for peanuts, why not? But it bites me in the ass and kills my spirit.
I think maybe I'm just getting old and jaded and running out of steam. I'm becoming far less patient. This is my one life, yanno? Why can't I make myself happy? Part of it is certainly my husband's attitude. He asserts that art is decorative and subjective, therefore it's not serious. It's not important. It's not worth paying for. He doesn't see why I can't just get some office job for $15/hour tomorrow and earn my keep. (I know he wouldn't put it that way TO MY FACE, but I feel it.) He's not creative in the least, but he IS a very hard worker; he's a mechanical designer--heating, cooling, plumbing, that sort of thing. In fact, here it is, Sunday, and he's at work because we need the money. And I'm practicing my art and writing. Making not a dime.
Guilty conscience, thy name is Cris.
How do you guys make it work? How do you keep creative, whilst cranking out low-paying work subject to someone else's approval and still keep your spirits up? I need some virtual pick-me-upping, gang.
2 minutes ago
1 comments:
this post is really touching to me, I appreciate your thoughts because In feel they are relative to every illustrator.
This industry is going through a slump, and has been for a while.
The golden age of illustration was the 50's-80'sish (mostly the 50's and 60's)
One major issue is that this industry is extremely over flooded. SO MANY PEOPLE graduate "art collage" every year. The market is so saturated with shit, and because of this people have to be competitive with pricing their work. This means that if you're not the cheapest, you don't get the work, even though you're a great artist, there are 5000 other artist out there willing to do the work for $100 less (this includes me, unfortunately) I want you to know that you are not alone with your frustrations.
EVERY SINGLE ART FRIEND I HAVE is in the same rut. The thing to do right now is to have a supplementary source of income, a side job. This will make it so you can be picky about the jobs you take.
When someone comes up to you with a shit job for $150, you can turn them down (as you should). The more we take shity jobs, the more it becomes "ok".
It actually devalues the whole industry. Art is worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it. If I price a piece for $100 and a bidding war pops up on it and I make a million off it, then that piece is now worth a million dollars.
So by taking crap jobs for crap pay, it makes the work worth crap.
Most people just don't respect us. Your husband sounds like he has a good head on his shoulders but clearly does not sound like an artist. You need to hang in there and keep doing what you love and what you're good at. AND don't be afraid or ashamed to take a crappy part time job, it will give you more time to do the art you want, rather then spending your time looking for money in crap jobs. Does this all make sense??? I hope so, and try to stay positive
e.
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