How Much Should You Pay An Artist?

I’m kicking off season two of the First Coat podcast! This season I’ll be sharing more about how I do what I do: curate and project manage site-specific artworks. This first episode is about how much you should pay an artist.

Show Notes: https://distillcreative.com/blog/2/8/21/how-much-to-pay-artists

Transcript

Stephanie Eche: 0:02

Welcome to first coat, where we explore public realm art and how it's made and why it matters. I'm your host Stephanie che an artist and entrepreneur based in Brooklyn, New York, I run to still create a white jury and produce site specific art projects for real estate developers. I focus on creating more equity, equitable and inclusive projects, and I want to get more exposure for the artists and developers doing this work. Last year when Coronavirus started, I dove into a project I finally did my podcast idea and it actually turned into both a podcast and a video series which hopefully you've watched some episodes or listen to the podcast. So the first season I interviewed a bunch of mural artists who I love some of them whom I've worked with. And we talked about everything it takes to be a mural artist, how to actually develop a mural, everything from creating a design, to installation to working with clients to pricing your murals. So if you're interested in mural creation as either a mural artist or someone who's just interested in how murals happen, or if you want to actually commission a mural by an artist, I highly suggest you listen to the first season of first coat, check out all the interviews I did with artists, it was super fun. And I'm so glad that I was able to talk to all of the artists, we did the interviews via zoom. So it was like it didn't matter where they were many of the artists were not in New York City where I am. So it was a great way to just spend March when I was stuck in my apartment. And actually, I'm still stuck in my apartment. Technically, I'm in my studio, which is a short walk from my apartment. And I'm the only one who comes in besides my husband. So we've been using this space to do well. I'm using it to record today. This next series is going to both dive into how I curate and project manage site specific projects for businesses and real estate developers, which is something I've been doing for the past few years actually, I used to be the placemaking manager at Vornado Charles D. Smith and Washington DC, I was focused on Crystal City. And that was the first like real job title I had doing this work previous I was doing things just with friends or as a hobby and I actually got a job got paid to do placemaking for a major developer. And that was awesome. I did that for a bit. And then I decided to just go out on my own. So that's how I started to still creative. There's still creative connects artists and real estate developers or other business owners or funders who want to fund a site specific art project is often murals, but not always. And we also just help curate art for anyone, I am an artist myself. And so as I'm helping other artists with their projects, I'm learning a lot about what kind of work I want to do if I want to do work in public space. But mostly I have a studio practice right now. That's the theme for season two. And I'm really excited to get started. So some things that I will be covering are how to pay artists, how to find artists, how to hire artists, just a lot how to use and I'll also do some interviews later on. So if you have any specific questions about art in public space, how to do art in public space more equitably, please let me know, email me Stephanie at distill creative Comm. And I'm really excited to get going. So here we go. How much should you pay an artist? I get this question a lot. And it really depends, the short answer is pay your artist as much as you can. So if you have a budget, pay them not much, really, there's a much longer answer. And I think what's hard about pricing art, particularly for art and public space, is that there's just a lot of variety and how people price their art in public space, and also how art is done in public space. So obviously, a lot of art in public space is done just by the artists because they want to do that kind of work. Whether that's like guerilla art, street art, whatever you want to call it. There's tons of that. So that's confusing, right? Because you might think like, Oh, this person's doing that art for free, why would I pay them to do it, then the there's the other side of it, where there's a lot of foundations and a lot of businesses who fund really large projects where they're, they're using budgets of like, hundreds of 1000s of dollars millions of dollars for for this project. So it's really hard to know what you should pay an artist when there's this scale of work, right? It also applies to if you are hiring an artist for a business need or something for something for your business. So say you want to have an artist do an illustration for for your website, for your blog, whatever. You also should pay the artist obviously. But there's a range of how much an artist is going to cost depending on a lot of different things. So first thing to do when determining how much to pay an artist is to number one, pay your artist, I just want to be very clear about that. I think a lot of people expect to get artwork for free or they think they're giving the artist exposure or whatever. Even if you're a big brand. giving an artist an exposure is just not a good excuse. You should always pay your artists something. Number two is do your research. I dive into this a little bit more in my blog post. I have a link at the description of this video. But basically you want to research other projects that are similar to the project you're doing. See what other artists are charging or getting paid for that project, this can be really hard because a lot of these prices are behind closed doors, it sucks. This is why I think we need to be more transparent about how much we're paying artists for art in public spaces, I think it's super important that we share the information because if we don't share them, we can't, we can't get more projects out because no one knows how much something's going to cost. And then they don't do it because they're like, oh, that probably cost a million dollars, or Oh, that does cost a million dollars, because that's the only example they see. So do your research, you want to pay attention to a couple of different things. When you are researching how much to pay artists, one of the things is who's the artist, different artists cost different amounts of money, it's just the way it is, if it's a really famous artist, a really well known artist, a really skilled artist, they might be more expensive than an unknown artist, or someone who's just starting out. I'm not saying that those artists are any less talented or valuable. It's just the way it worked. Keep that in mind when you're looking at other prices for projects, you also want to keep in mind location. So where the project is and where the artist is coming from will be factored into the price of the project. So if you're flying an artist in from another city, that's going to be more expensive than hiring a local artist. So just keep that in mind when looking at other people's project prices. You also want to think about the size of the work. So a large mural may be more expensive than a small mural. But, again, a small Mural by a more famous artists may be more expensive than a large Mural by newer or lesser known artists. So all of these things kind of work together. But I'm just giving you what you should be thinking about when you're looking at other project prices. Another thing to think about are the expectations of the artist, if you are hiring an artist and you expect them to be in meetings with your company, every week for six months, you need to pay them for that. So just factor that into the price and make sure they know upfront that that's what you expect them to do, because that's a lot of work. And I think a lot of times people kind of just forget about that. And then they like expect the artists fee on all these calls. And it's it's really unfair to the artist, if you don't tell them ahead of time, and you don't pay them for that time, when you're looking at the prices of other projects, you also really want to pay attention to who paid for the project. If it's a big foundation or a big company, often it's multiple big foundations, they're probably gonna have a much bigger budget than one small company or an entity, an individual or a kind of more grassroots project that maybe has a bunch of funders, but it's just not, they aren't as big of organizations, and they just don't have as much money to put into that that doesn't. Again, that doesn't mean that this artwork is better than this artwork. And that's why it's more expensive. It's just it's just how it works. Public Art is a weird world. And those are some things that you should think about when you're looking at how other people are pricing their work. So who the artist is the size of the work, the location of the work, the type of work, expectations of the artist, and who's paying for the work are all things that you should take into account when you are doing research about how much a project similar to yours might cost? Once you have a general idea of how much a similar project cost and why with all those factors, then you can think about how much are you willing to pay and what is the scope of work that you think is reasonable for the price that you have. So if all the prices for this project are like way out of your budget, and you only have a little bit, that doesn't mean you can't do the project, it just means you might need to scale the project back or just be upfront with the artist about how much you have to spend so that they don't have these expectations that you have a ton of money. And that goes into reaching out to the artist. So once you know how much generally you can pay. And ideally, once you have a creative brief which I go over in another video, you can reach out to an artist, you can let them know what the project is some details. And you can give them your budget and ask them is this something that they that that they could do, you can also ask them for their budget first, but I suggest being more transparent and just letting them know like, Hey, I have about this much money, you can give them a range. That way, you're not wasting their time, they're not wasting your time. And you can get to the next step, which is something else I go over in another another video of how to hire an artist. But basically it just kind of talks about like getting a proposal, obviously getting a contract at some point. Anyway, that's a bunch of other stuff. This is just about how much you should pay an artist. So once you're talking to the artist, you'll you'll get there you'll figure out what what a good price is for the project, because I'll let you know if that works. And yeah, hopefully you'll get to a good price. And everybody's happy. And you can move on to the next the next part of actually hiring an artist. Some other things to keep in mind are time, how much time is this going to take the artist and I don't just mean making the work, I mean actually dealing with you to make the work because so much about commissioned art, even stuff that the artist has already made. A lot of people might want to like talk to them or do a video call or whatever, that's fine, just like be upfront about what you're expecting from them. Also urgency. So is this a project that needs to happen like as soon as possible, like in the next month? Or is this something that's going to take three years to happen? You should let them know because maybe, maybe they can't do it if it's in the next month that they could do it if it's in three years, or on the flip side. Maybe they are they need to budget their their years production and so they want to know ahead of time if this is going to happen in nine months or 36 months. You also want to think about expertise. I talked about this. A little Before but if someone is more experienced, then they might charge more. Again, it doesn't mean that their work is necessarily better than someone who was less experienced. It just, it's just kind of how the art world works, you'll get a sense as you start talking to artists complexity. So if this project requires a lot of figuring out, like, I need to figure out how to do this, I need to figure out how to do that, whether that's you or the artist, or both. That's going to be a more expensive project. So just keep that in mind. paint on a wall is much less complex than like a multimedia 3d video, like, whatever. So just keep that in mind when you're figuring out what kind of project you want to do and how much you are, you can pay for that project. As a quick recap, how much should you pay an artist, you should pay them as much as you possibly can. But you should do your research, figure out what are some similar projects to your project, think about all the factors I listed out to determine like, what's similar to your project and come up with a range, reach out to the artist, ask them how much it would cost, make sure you give them your range. And you can start that discussion. I think it's really important to be transparent about your budgets with artists, because they may have not done exactly what you're asking them to do. That doesn't mean that they can't, but they're also playing the pricing game. And for artists, it's like a whole nother thing. And there's lots of different strategies. If you're curious how to price your work as an artist, I'll put some resources in the description below. But Different people have different strategies. So I hope this helps you figure out how much to pay an artist for a project you're commissioning, I highly suggest you hire artists right now, always. There are lots of things that artists can do to make your business or your new development site so much better. I recently had one of my artworks licensed to be in someone's newsletter and it was awesome. They paid me they weren't clear about what they what they were going to use the image for. And it worked out really seamlessly. So it's it's very easy to do, but you just need to do a little bit of research. Let me know if you have any questions. My email is Stephanie at distill creative Comm. How much have you paid an artist? What have you paid artists for in the past? How did that How did that go? I would love to hear any questions you have about how to work with artists, how to pay artists, I just want to get more artists paid and paid well for their work. Remember, pay your artist by end Be sure to check out Season One of first coat where I interview a bunch of mural artists and you can hear about how they price their work and how they get commissions. This is particularly helpful if you're an artist but if you're someone who's commissioning a mural, it's also really interesting. Thank you so much for listening to first coat again. My name is Stephanie and have a good one. All right. Thanks for listening to this episode of first coat. If you like this podcast, please leave a review. Make sure to subscribe to the first podcast wherever you listen to podcast and follow us on Instagram at first podcast or at distill creative production company