Ever since I was a wee lad, barely old enough to hold a pencil, I have never stopped making artwork. It's what I was made to do, otherwise I would have given up long ago and pursued a career in boxing or some other respectable life dream.
Intent on seeing this art thing through, I went to college for six years, collected a B.F.A. in Art (Painting) in 2004 and my M.F.A. (Painting & Drawing) in 2006. Give me a paintbrush, charcoal stick, glue gun, or video camera and I could make you something nice.
So where am I now? Mostly unemployed, scrambling to make ends meet. I calculated today that it would take me selling a new painting or sculpture every month for $5,000 to break even with the costs of living. How, you ask? Galleries that provide shows for artists typically take a cut of anywhere between 50%-60% of each sale made. That would leave me with $2,500 to $2,000 per piece sold, not even factoring in the taxes taken out. My family's total monthly expenditure is in the ballpark of $2,200 a month. That's still cutting it close.
Even if it was possible to sustain such a remarkable turnaround rate as $5k worth of art a month, where does one find a market? I'd need to look in several cities. When a gallery and artist form an alliance, you can expect to see exhibitions by that artist once a year at most. Any gallery worth their salt would also prohibit the artist from showing in any other gallery within 50-100 miles of their location to prevent others from capitalizing on their investment. Fair enough, business is business.
Next, we look at the cost of exhibiting in other cities. Shipping artwork is expensive, and increases the likelihood that a piece will be damaged en route to a location. I imagine this is where it pays to have dear, true friends working in these gallery positions. I wouldn't have the time to drive the work cross-country since I'll be busy meeting studio deadlines and mailing out slides to new cities.
A person capable of showing and selling their work to such a degree has the potential to build a market for him or herself. With notoriety, one can expect natural cost increases to reflect demand. Here is where artwork prices are buoyed to ridiculous heights, and the wistful dream of hobnobbing within the high, dark bastions of New York City's art elite is realized. And who wouldn't like to be bourgeois? Most likely, this brief flare of popularity and its subsequent passing would be far too damaging to a human being. The rise and fall of an ego is a great and terrible thing. It may be better to live in obscurity than be contorted by such forces.
Another option available is to simply make the artwork and let everything else follow. If you could look into the future and tell me I'll never sell another painting, would I stop making artwork? I don't think so. Making stuff makes me happy. It sucks that I can't make a real living off of my work, but there are worse things out there.
Thanks for reading.
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