after i did my very first book cover, the AD wrote to me “my advice to you is to immediately raise your rates.” the joke is i still fight with nearly every client to get the budget he paid me for that cover :’)
you can’t build a career on that foundation! i want to emphasize that it wasn’t always like this — when i was younger & would ask a low fee, there were benevolent art directors who were honest about their budget and paid me more than i’d asked. there was so much more respect towards artists overall.
yes totally — this requires us to understand our clients as predatory in their behavior (whether they intend to be or not). if they aren’t willing to invest in our growth by paying fair rates & increasing pay along with experience, they’re treating us as an endless queue of disposable amateurs
over the past few years, i’ve watched initial offers drop so low that i often have to ask a 200-400% increase which is nuts and unlikely to happen… & since rates keep dropping, i can infer that most other artists are taking that initial offer without pushback, which brings rates down for everyone!
keep in mind clients ALWAYS have more budget than their initial offer. unless you’re over the moon about the project and their offer genuinely makes you feel well compensated, asking for a 25-50% increase is very reasonable & standard practice
so when i find myself only going from freelance job to freelance job to make ends meet with no time for personal work, i know i’m not being paid fairly & something needs to change. in that case you can either dial back the time & effort you’re putting in to align with the budget, or ask for more
the growth part shouldn’t be thought of as a luxury, but as essential to your ability to sustain yourself creatively long-term. for some people, an hour of sketchbook time a day might feel like enough; for me, freelance is not my main focus, but insulation from the irregularity of gallery income
personally i “feel it out” — i keep my main goals in mind (does this budget range allow me to feel secure about covering living expenses + allow time for personal work / growth?), then as i work, ask myself if it feels like this was “worth it” or if my time would have been better spent elsewhere
that’s a decent strategy, but yeah, artists do chronically undervalue their time. alot of people like to use equations to calculate an hourly rate using their desired annual income, expenses, etc. it’s also good to learn (by experience or asking around) what is industry standard & be realistic
They need the world to be as ugly and absent of possibility as their lives, their souls. They need everything to be a mirror, and the only truly trustworthy mirror for what is inside them is a pile of broken bodies, a mound of dust and sand, a rubble strewn field
Beauty is not in and of itself resistance and there are fascistic and police modes of beauty, but any beauty that falls outside the profitable, the ordained, the dominant is an affront to them, a fearful sign of a world without them
The goal of the US and Israel is to reduce all blooms to desert
this is so good i might cry about it
@royalghostmarch.bsky.social i’d kiss that loon
ignore all advice that doesn’t feel right for you. everyone thinks that what worked for them is what everyone else HAS to do; i never did half the things in this thread, and if you tried to do them all you’d be exhausted and confused. no rules is the best part about being an artist
I wrote about my time in Minneapolis last week, about what is involved in creating bottom-up, decentralized networks of care.
margaretkilljoy.substack.com/p/our-neighb...
Under Sail https://www.wikiart.org/en/andrew-wyeth/under-sail
Some things I quite nastily shouted at someone telling me about ai in a dream just then:
“I have so many ideas that I couldn’t finish them all if I lived for another 10 lifetimes”
“An ai cannot look at this heather the way I can, it just can’t, it’s impossible, that’s impossible, that’s art”
Easy link to contact your representatives: www.savetheboundarywaters.org/June25
The Boundary Waters, one of the largest wilderness areas left in the US, is at risk! The House could vote to overturn a ban on polluting sulfide-ore mining at the headwaters TODAY, setting a precedent for extraction on other public lands. Contact your reps right now and ask them to vote NO on HJ140!
🥹👋
occupied cavities • 11” x 14” • gouache & watercolor on paper
this world isn’t big enough for two gall-focused artists, but we’re glad to have you regardless
“slow down, look around, drag yourself across the ground”
@teaganwhite.bsky.social and my collaborative show is up now through november 4th at RiverSea Gallery in Astoria, OR
https://riverseagallery.com/slow-down-look-around-drag-yourself-across-the-ground
twig • branch • leaf
three cyanotypes toned in black walnut, for my upcoming collaborative show with @jessenarens.bsky.social, opening October 11th at Riversea Gallery in Astoria OR
the whole show is so beautiful vanessa!
haha sure would
