I sometimes have the feeling that this question is the elephant on the table. I've supported my family since 1989 as an illustrator. It hasn't been easy, but it has been a joyous choice. This summer I'm making my move into the summer art show circuit. This is a big leap of faith for me. I've been accepted into a number of shows-thrilled! But the question remains...will enough people give me $ for my paintings? I do not have a partner that helps support the family financially, so every dime I earn comes from drawing. It's been 22 years tough.
My question to this community is, is it possible to earn enough $ to support ones family simply by doing the art show circuit? How many of you out there do it without an additional part time job? Without the financial contribution of a partner? Without a trust fund?
Replies
Linda,
Without going into extreme details, yes the materials cost about $40. Remember I buy an entire card of stones and the sterling was cheaper than it was today. The chain is probably not sterling but I sell the pendant and use the chain for display purposes. I throw in the chain, if they want it but most either use their own omega chain or purchase a sterling chain from me separately.
I gotta chime in here. Most artists probably work more than 2080 hours a year. That number is calculated on 8-hour days and a 52-week year. It also gets diminished by vacation (4 weeks), sick days (2 weeks, holidays (10 days), and so forth. We travel more, we work weekends, we don't take vacations, so the number of hours artist work is probably higher than the corporate benchmark you quote, Bruce.
But using a corporate salary as a benchmark for what you want to make as an artist is a perfectly valid goal. That figure may be hard to attain, but it's certainly valid.
Most artists know how to calculate cost of goods. Many use that as the sole basis of a retail price. That's fine -- it's easy, and simple. They are all hard costs. But it doesn't take into account your sweat equity, and the value of your time. Some companies can price services based solely on cost of goods, and add a markup to recover labor costs. Nothing wrong with that, but I betcha that when you factor in overhead and labor costs that the 800% markup on materials becomes a much smaller overall profit factor.
If you can turn a 20% profit, while still paying yourself a $50,000 salary, covering your overhead and cost of goods, I'd call you successful as an artist. Salary doesn't equal profit -- that's a cost, just like mud and glass and steel.
I'm going through the exercise of determining what my overhead and labor factor should be. I did it once when I was still freelancing to determine an hourly rate. That labor rate is based on what you want to make, not what you're actually getting paid. What most of us are actually making per hour is laughable, compared to corporate salaries of the last decade. If you're making a good living, covering expenses, putting some money aside for the next phase of your life, it really doesn't matter what your definition of profitable is.
I don't use any set figure when determining my prices. I use what has worked for me, and that's the price in which it will sell, and nothing more. My market determines my prices.
I have never figured in an hourly rate, and never will. And yes, when you break down the costs of doing what I do for a living, that 800% is of course lower. But I have a very simple formula. I sell my products, deduct my costs, and what's left over is mine.
Yes, sometimes I'll only have to work a day or so to get ready for a show, and in the busy season I'll have to put in sometimes 12-16 hour days for 5 days, and then go to a show to sell. How do you break that down to an hourly rate?
My costs are everything I can deduct from my taxes. And I can't deduct my time, so I don't figure it in.
Jim, you hit the nail on the head when you said what we make per hour is laughable. Yes it is. But if you have an actual passion for what you do, you can make less than minimum wage and it doesn't matter. Because we are a part of a very fortunate group of people who actually enjoy what we do for a living. And to me that's much more important than making $50,000 a year working at a job I disliked, for a company that didn't care.
They describe a passion as doing something even if you weren't paid for it. In today's economy our passion is indeed questioned. But I would still rather do this than go back to a "real job" any day.
It's hard to live on minimum wage these days, even for artists. Getting back to the original poster's question, if there's enough left over after paying the hard costs (app fees, booth fees, travel, food, cost of goods, taxes) so that you can pay your bills, then you are earning a living.
Having an 800% markup on cost of goods may provide a good living for you; you may not need $50,000 a year to cover your expenses any more. That equation is going to be different for every artist. But just enjoying what you do becomes less enjoyable when you aren't making the monthly nut.
Even though artists enjoy what they do with a passion, the stress of uncertainty destroys much of the peace of mind that comes with the territory. For many, the business model doesn't work very well. Not knowing which shows will accept you from year to year and not being able to accurately predict either weather or sales definitely make this a challenging business.
Opportunity cost of a corporate job? Better explain that.
I am a crafter. www.shadypinestudios.com
I have done many shows in my life and I have made everything from music boxes with Reuge movements to inlay work. I made house numbers for 10 years and sold over 40,000 at an average price of $25. I have done many shows with people making over 6 figures annually just doing this for a living.
But with age, I'm slowing down to making my siding clips. I can make $3,000 worth of them a week so I do shows every week. It's not fine art or even close. But I do make everything myself.
A great way to place a price on your labor is to look at what you can make on a straight job.
I was making $50,000 a year when I walked away in 1994. It's totally unrealistic to break that down into an hourly rate.
I just lower the cost of my supplies (steel) and find the "going rate' and use that as my base price. And I've lowered my costs to a point where I'm making over 800% profit.
Bruce said:
"In the thirty years I have been involved in Fine Craft I have never met a fellow craftsperson that didn't have and use other means if income to keep with the craft."
Well, now you have.
My wife and I have been doing this as long as you and we left the corporate world in 1994 to do this full time. It has been our only source of income since then. We live just like people with "real jobs" too. We have a mortgage on the house we built in 2002 and we have regular bills just like other people too.
This is my job, so I treat it like one. I do shows for a living, so I do as many shows as I must to make that living. I don't depend on that "big show" to make half my yearly income as I've seen those "big" shows get rained out. So I do about 40 shows per year. If one is bad, I have next week.
I'm not afraid to change with the times or change what I do completely when one item falls by the wayside.
And yes, the economy sucks right now. Big time. And times are tough. But being in this business you learn to be resourceful. And one way or another, we'll get through this.
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