It's Your Fault You're Not Getting Paid Enough
Get in, loser. We're putting things in perspective
Making a living as an artist does not come easily, and at times it can feel cursed. On the one hand, you get to do for a living what you yearn to do from the deepest recesses of your soul (to put it lightly.) But on the other hand, the bills don't pay themselves, and the art world can be as unforgiving as it is rewarding. We've all heard stories or lived them ourselves—artists feeling forced to sell their work for less than it's worth, or worse, getting caught in the gears of some opportunistic middleman looking to squeeze artist talent for bargain basement prices, often dishonestly. I've been there, and so has every other working artist. Opportunities that feel like dreams come true can go south in an instant. Artwork can literally get stolen. Because our profession is intrinsically emotional, artists can be easily manipulated. Relationships between brokers and artists can occupy at best a moral gray area, leaving artists wondering whether these guys aren’t pocketing the lion’s share of the profits for themselves.
Here is the problem: Many artists do not understand business; they undersell their art and therefore complicate the consumer’s understanding of the value of the product they are selling, and then, when they are dissatisfied with the discrepancy between the perceived value of their effort and what they were actually paid, they complain about exploitation and talk about imposing top-down measures to ensure “equitable pay.” I will speak specifically about muralism because, comparatively speaking, that is where the money is made, and as such, it is a popular avenue for artists to try to break into. Understanding the economics of graphic arts means the difference between living life on your own terms and trafficking in defeat, resorting to making uninformed complaints on the internet about how capitalism did you dirty.
You're not poor because you're being exploited. You're poor because you're economically illiterate.
I feel for artists in many of these circumstances because it really is tough to make a living, especially when you forget to run a profit & loss calculation before invoicing a client. A mural is a lot of work to produce, and at the end of the day, your average artist won’t make a windfall profit even when these projects are priced fairly. You learn this if you run your own business, but if your only experience in mural painting is by way of festivals or brokered events where there are other players behind the scenes doing all of the hard stuff for you, it may come as a shock.
Over Easter weekend, an article appeared to this effect in The Sacramento Bee. The article ran as an attempt to slander the mural organization Wide Open Walls for underpaying its artists. I can’t speak to every point in the article because I have not worked with Wide Open Walls. I have met the organizer, and he seemed perfectly pleasant. Despite the rash of bad publicity, I see no real evidence that Wide Open Walls is any worse an offender than any other public art production organization that traffics in high-quality, large-scale murals by top talents from around the world. Change my mind, I guess.
Given some of the stories I’ve heard about other projects over the years, I expected to read about a scandal, but in this case I found nothing particularly galling. The article is rife with nonsense from different artists complaining about feeling undervalued, for example, after being given a 2,560-square-foot wall for their first-ever mural, accepting a modest honorarium, and then years later deciding they were exploited for wanting to get their foot in the door, which I won’t spend much time commenting on. You can read it for yourself and decide whether these takedowns have any merit at all.
This was what I found to be the most telling paragraph in the entire article:
This artist’s complaint is that she received a $3,500 stipend for a wall valued at $20,000. She says she would have charged $16,500 for commissioning the project solo and appears to think that $16.5k is how much she would have profited on the project. I can’t believe this complaint made it into print.
Assuming the $20,000 budget is correct, that comes out to approximately $24 per square foot for a wall that size, and the artist says she spent three weeks on it. 92 hours over three weeks comes out to about 6 hours a day with weekends off. The lift equipment the artist used cost $1,500 to rent by the month, and I’m sure that doesn’t include California taxes, delivery, and pick-up fees. I’d estimate upwards of $2,000 for paint and supplies, not to mention any prep and priming. That could have brought the back-end material cost up to $5,000, assuming little to no measures were taken to mitigate waste.
If the artist says she would have charged $16,500 for the mural had it been commissioned privately, then she is already down by half in back-end costs. Then you factor in insurance, fuel costs, accommodation, food, assistant fees, if any, and overhead costs. In the case of a mural festival like Wide Open Walls, the organizer of the festival is absorbing all of this cost, paying for media and publicity, and probably providing a few parties and dinners, and I would reasonably assume they are paying themselves something. Equate the festival organizer with a manager or representative who takes a commission. Suddenly, that $3,500 is looking pretty good.
The article decently illustrates the distinction between net and gross income by including the actual cost breakdown for the project, and the artist herself admits she was willing to accept the rate because she recognized the value of the opportunity. So then, why complain about unfair treatment?
It’s an important precedent that fair and reasonable artist fees should be worked into the budget for every production. Of course, the higher the fees, the better. Every artist deserves to get paid for their work, and the expectation that artists should work for free is cringeworthy. However, the value of certain jobs can exceed what an artist gets paid in dollars. Mural events like these provide a lot of the groundwork necessary for artists to be able to build up their clout in order to begin commanding higher prices down the line. An artist getting plucked out of obscurity and being elevated to blue-chip status is something that happens at most a few times in a generation, and most of us will never be that lucky. There is therefore tremendous value in the networking opportunities, quality photo and video documentation, free press, and work experience afforded to us by participating in these events. Some mural events do not pay out artist fees at all but instead spend a great deal on event production, perks, and amenities that might make the event worth attending. These days, I would look askance at an event that promises huge production value but doesn’t have any money in the budget to pay artist fees, but they always tell you in advance whether you’ll be paid a stipend. It’s up to your discretion whether it would be worth your time to participate.
Further in the same article, it says this:
Since Wide Open Walls was established, it has driven down the market price for murals in the city, said Andru Defeye, Sacramento’s poet laureate. Defeye said business owners would pay more money for murals, but Wide Open Walls’ rates established a precedent that businesses could pay less.
This doesn’t exactly make mathematical sense. If the author’s previous assertion is true and a business in Sacramento paid $20,000 for an emerging local artist to paint their wall, then this pricing seems entirely justifiable. I’ve painted larger walls for less. Setting this point aside, it’s rather shortsighted to accuse these mural production non-profits of devaluing murals overall.
Even if it’s frustrating to have to share our wages with a middleman, it’s important to acknowledge the broader impact of mural festivals around the world. These events have been instrumental in reshaping the cultural perception of contemporary muralism, elevating its value in the eyes of business and property owners. The effect has been so profound that the need to persuade businesses of the worth of a mural has virtually disappeared. I think back to as recently as 2010, when an artist practically had to bribe the business owner for permission to paint on a public-facing wall. The muralist profession wasn't seen as financially viable because public perception saw mural art as no different than graffiti vandalism. Why would a business, township, or property owner invest thousands in a frivolity for which there was no demand? Now, less than 15 years later, murals have become a coveted asset for businesses, and mural painting is now a sought-after and sustainable career for artists. This didn’t spring up out of nowhere; it was partly the result of these pioneering mural festivals doing the legwork, engaging business owners and community stakeholders, making public art more accessible, and establishing the value of murals in the eyes of the public.
Some Practical Advice
So you are early in your mural career, and you’re wondering: how can you, as an artist, protect yourself from having to suffer embarrassment and regret? What measures can you take at the outset that will put you leaps and bounds ahead of the pack and put you in a perpetual flow state, with your growing list of clients commending your integrity and your business acumen?
Be discerning. There are people you shouldn’t work with. Research and talk to your fellow artists to see how many of them have been screwed in the past by a particular person or entity, and then decide for yourself whether the value of the experience outweighs the risk.
Do the math. Find out how much money you need to make to sustain yourself, and work out your rates from there. The Graphic Artist’s Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines offers a useful formula to calculate a per diem rate: Start by totaling all your annual expenses, and then factor in a salary that feels reasonable to you. Take this sum and divide it by 230—the number of working days in a year—to find your daily rate. Add a reasonable profit margin—10–15% is recommended to start—to arrive at your per diem rate. That’s how much money you need to make in a day. Finally, multiply this rate by the projected number of days you think you’ll spend on the project, and you’ll arrive at your total project cost. If you want to aim higher, that’s your risk to take.
Be humble. For crying out loud, don’t over-inflate the value of your work too early on. You’ll get fewer jobs, you’ll become a bitter complainer, and no one will like you.
Establish your name. How much you profit will depend largely on what you can get away with. Beyond a certain price point, the reputation of the artist matters. You want to get to a point where people are buying your work, not just paint on a wall. The more prolific you are, the higher a price point you can command. That’s just the way it works.
Negotiate. Be prepared to sell the client on the value of the work. If you don’t have good communication skills, develop them.
Know when to say ‘No.’ If a business propositions you for a huge mural and their budget is $500, you should laugh in their face. Businesses will have to reconsider their budget if artists stop taking the job. You do not need to justify this as an opportunity to get your foot in the door. This will not be the last project you ever get. Your future self will thank you.
At the end of the day, it’s about getting our art out there, creating good work, serving the public, and generating more opportunities to continue doing what we love. All artists would do well to remember that these mural productions don’t happen overnight. Instead of complaining, how about having some humility and respect for the production teams behind the scenes who make these projects happen so that your fancy ass can show up and make your art for the world to see. Or you could run all of the production yourself, and advocate for yourself for whatever price you think is fair. Nothing wrong with that.
There is so much gold on this. I especially love your emphasis on business literacy - whether painting on canvas or walls… if you don’t know how to “do the math”, you don’t know how much money you actually make. There’s plenty of books and free online resources that cover the business side of art. Some solid books to expand on this subject… “Money Art Success” by Maria Brophy, “How to Sell Art” by Jason Horejs, “I’d Rather be in the Studio” by Alyson Standfield, and “The Mural Artist’s Handbook” by Morgan Bricca.
Well done, Taylor!