2 weeks and counting, my financial blues!
Being an artist is not an easy road to venture down, the money is up and down, you always seem to want the bigger pack of art supplies, your vehicle seems to break down more frequently than not! The list goes on and on!
Trying to get married while working full time as an artist? Well, this has been the hardest thing I have ever tried to do financially! So far, my fiance and I, have been able to keep ourselves balanced by constantly freaking out about how much we are spending ( I mean you can only eat K.D and rice for so long before you feel like your probably going to faint from malnutrition!). My point being, I would never recommend trying to get married while just living off of your art!
Marriages, especially ones with the bigger ceremonies and large amounts of people, are so expensive in this day. If you were to even utter that 'W' word everyone loves to hike the prices up! Why is this? I know that weddings back in the day were only for the rich to show just how rich they were, but thanks to the media and propaganda it has been made out to be something that every couple should strive for! So how can it be affordable for someone like me to have themselves a nice wedding without going into (more) crippling debt?!
I know these blogs everyone usually expects me to want to type about what art supplies to buy and where and such and so, but I want to talk to you guys about being an young artist living in the 21st century in Canada! Boom!
Being an artist is hard. I have saved those who don't want to read the rest of this blog a lot of time! But everyone knows that doing something you love is never going to be easy, so what would make being an artist so different?
I am very sure that i have most likely sold my soul to an questionable figure (you know who i'm talking about!) in order to be able to have done as well as I have so early in the game! I am almost at the 3 year mark of selling my art in a professional manner and am just seeing the light now!
Just getting started is the first scary initial jump! If you can't make that decision on your own without someone else telling you it's going to be okay, you probably aren't ready yet! The amount of insane debt I went into that first summer was heart crushing. There was the making of prints, buying new art supplies almost every day trying to figure out the best quality and why it was the best for what results you were wanting to achieve, then on top of that you are using SO many different mediums because maybe just using graphite is not what you really want to end up doing all on its own!
Making prints of all my artwork was so expensive! The giclee prints run around, for an 8x10 about $6-$8 depending on where you get it printed, not to mention i like to put a foam core backer and a protective sleeve on mine, which can run about another $1.75+ depending on how much foam you buy and sleeves.. so already that's about $9.75, almost $10 on making a single 8x10 print. That is the smallest and most frequent size that i sell because it is the cheapest size! HOWEVER, here's the catch! You are probably thinking to yourself, well you are still making $10 on top of that if you sell them for $20 right? WRONG! For any event that you sell your prints for you have to factor in your gas, lodging, food and event costs that build up! Not to mention, you now need to replace that print that you have just sold. So, in my particular case, I am losing out on money when someone buys a small print!
So why don't you just increase the price of your small guys you say? Well I want you to get out a ruler and make an 8 inch by 10 inch shape and ask yourself, "Would you pay $20+ for a picture that size?"...I wouldn't, so why would I do that to someone else (Do to others what you would have done yourself!)?
So to fix this i decided to make another size, my medium size, ranging anywhere from an 11x14 to an 12x16 depending on the piece! As your size increases so too does the overall cost of producing such a beast! The vicious circle that artists are constantly trying to play 'catch up' to is that of print production! Now, with this being said, you will eventually catch up...and blow it all on art supplies! This is inevitable!
The only true time that an artist makes money is when they sell an original piece of artwork! Personal or commission, i charge the same price, though i know of others who go cheaper on their personal pieces. This is when an art lover who has fallen in love with the artist and their abilities to create a piece that simply stuns them and they want to invest in the future of that artist! These people are God sent for us. I would not be here if it was not for the people who have invested in and believed that my art is going to go somewhere (which it is, I declare on this page that I am going to surpass Robert Bateman and become Canada's next top wildlife artist). They bought my early originals and it helped me not only monetary wise but also mentally. When a person buys an original, that means they truly love your artwork and want to see it everyday for the rest of their lives! It is such an honor that my art could have that kind of value to someone.
I urge everyone to buy original artwork if they can. At this current moment i myself am even saving up to get a personal piece done by an amazing artist living in Port Alice, here on Vancouver Island, named Dan Nordin. I highly recommend everyone to look at his art!
Now i know after that whole speech about being bigger than Robert Bateman, some of you are thinking, "Wow, this girl sounds kind rude/ambitious/silly". Being better than Robert Bateman isn't just a competition or like, something that i say, I want to be higher than him because i want my words to touch and affect others. I am a HUGE endangered wildlife artist and I want to be able to put my words and my thoughts and feelings into each painting and have someone be able to sense my love and passion for wanting to save these animals! I want to bring about awareness for these species that are disappearing so quickly! It's my goal to travel and see them while I can and to be able to put them into my paintings!
Being on a higher stand than Bateman means something so different to me than when I hear it coming from others. They are thinking talent and paint skills, while I am thinking of how far my reach and voice will be able to travel when I am up there!
Of course having all these really big plans is very costly. If there was 1 question i could ask the greats it would be, how did you advertise yourself so well?
It always comes down to the fact on if you can sell or not. You have to personally sell a piece of you, something that has taken hours and sometimes even months to create, and slap a price tag on it. This is the reality that has caused me the most grief. How do you sell a piece of yourself?
Now with all these factors and a whole bunch of, of course, personal problems into the mix, you get an incredibly hard business to try and bust into...but, once you take that leap of faith and dive into those waters, you will never want to go back. I guarantee it.
Through thick and thin my art has been able to be a part of me and give me a place of peace. With my upcoming wedding, now just under 2 weeks left to go, i feel such a sense of calm. I place my hurricane into the paintings and walk out on calm shores. Sure the money issues still pop up, and yes, they really do suck, but, I wouldn't have it any other way.
