In the first installment of this series I touched on the broader financial reality of being an artist in Waterloo Region. As outlined for 2012, before expenses, my gross earnings on art sales totaled $9256 for 15 paintings sold. In this post I’ll be delving into the expenses that were associated with producing and selling that work.

In 2012 I painted 44 paintings and produced 1 sculpture. (Here’s a list) Of these pieces, I sold 15 for a sales ratio of 33%—obviously I’m still sitting on a lot of inventory. While this sales ratio may initially seem low, compared to most of the artists I know in the region it’s actually a measure of moderate success. Most artists are sitting on a pile of unsold work—whether in the studio or placed on consignment with commercial galleries—and many I know find themselves painting over their canvasses that haven’t sold just to have an affordable chance to keep working.

Expenses, expenses, and more expenses.

Given that the most common advice artists are offered is to “act like an entrepreneur” the obvious question is what are the business expenses involved in producing that much artwork? Here’s the high-level breakdown of my artistic expenses for 2012:

Equipment (Brushes, knives, etc)	$404.37
Consumables (Paint, media, hardware)	$4015.53
Fees (Memberships, entry fees)	$257.50
Advertising (Printing)	$109.76
Donations	$533.93
TOTAL	$5350.62
PROFIT	$3905.38

 

On the face of it, the profitability of my artistic practice, as separate from my design practice, is around 42%. (This is obviously a simplified picture that ignores income tax, business deductions, time spent working in the studio, studio rent & utilities but it is illustrative.) Let’s break down each line item:

Equipment

Having been a practicing artist for over 2 decades, most of my capital expenditure on equipment has already been made—at this point I’m simply replacing tools that wear out. For a beginning artist this number will be substantially higher for the first few years as they accumulate everything necessary to run their practice—such as power tools, workbenches, easels, shelving, etc.

Consumables

Expenses for consumables are the lion’s share of the budget. I’ve always simply assumed that the materials cost to produce a painting (excluding framing and hourly time) was around the $100-120 mark and this dovetails nicely with the actual expenses listed here. Hard material expenses typically account for approximately 10% of the retail price of my work ($150/sq ft).

By way of illustration, let’s look at the costs associated with paint. Retail prices for a typical 2oz tube of artists’ quality paint range between $7-15 based on the particular colour. A responsible artist will produce work in a manner that avoids adverse material reactions to ensure the archival quality of their work, not only as a way of protecting their professional reputation, but as a way of maintaining the market value of their work post-sale for buyers that invest in their product. Cheaper materials are certainly available, but may not react well in multi-media applications, may chemically degrade due to acid or alkaline issues, as well as exhibit poor lightfastness or structural integrity leading to premature colour fading or physical deterioration of the work such as cracking.

Quality of the carrier medium aside, the single determining factor in the price of paint is the cost of the pigment it contains. With exceptions, most pigments fall into two general classes—organic dyes and metal oxides. The former are typically not as lightfast as the latter. The range of costs reflect not only the inherent value of the pigment, but also scarcity value. Prior to the 19th Century to create the colour ultramarine blue, for example, the gemstone lapis lazuli was ground down to produce the pigment making it prohibitively expensive. The invention of synthetic ultramarine dye in the 19th Century finally made the colour widely available and cheap enough for widespread use.

Some pigments may only be produced by a single supplier globally (I found this out the hard way when one of my favourite, most used colours was discontinued a couple of years ago because the pigment simply became unavailable).

At any given time, I stock about 120 tubes of paint in my studio, not including bulk jars. In addition, as a highly textural artist, I also stock several gallons of structural acrylic mediums, varnishes, retarders and gel mediums. Typically, the inventory of paint on hand is in the range of $3000-4000.

Fees

There is often a cost associated with applying to participate in juried exhibitions or gallery shows. These fees typically cover the costs associated with an organization in reviewing submissions. Artists may also have to become members of organizations, such as community art centres, to be eligible to submit to calls for submission. (If you are an artist, you may be interested in this article on evaluating calls for submission.) One way to look at such fees is that one of the largest subsidizers of the arts are the artists themselves.

Regarding fees, one exhibition approach that I do not see a lot of in the Waterloo Region is the so-called “vanity gallery” model. Similar to self-publishing—and often as derided—this model sees the artist paying a substantial fee up front to pay for the cost of staging the exhibition, in essence, renting the gallery. The barriers associated with juried calls are replaced with an economic one, but personally I’ve explored this route and have found it lucrative. (One thing to keep in mind is that you are still catering to the tastes of the gallery’s owner—if they don’t think they can sell your work they’ll rent to an artist they think has greater economic potential.) With this exhibition model, on top of fees, the artist will still generally pay commission to the gallery for sales, but they are typically lower than other commercial galleries in the range of 30-40%.

The Arts Project in London, Ontario is an excellent arts incubator model that charges for exhibition space similar to the vanity gallery model, but at reduced rates and without charging commission on sales, which are handled privately by the artist.

Locally, keep an eye on the upcoming Artisan Zone in Kitchener (Facebook link). Their model is a more collaborative approach, with low monthly fees and low commissions for participating artists, similar in many ways to the vanity gallery model but with a shared exhibition space.

Advertising

This is my lowest yearly expenditure and mostly covers the cost of printing posters and invites for shows. This is one cost I’ve managed to keep low primarily due to the of the rise of social media where most of my direct advertising activities are now focused. Also, expenditures are also reduced overall due the fact that most reputable venues and organizations are active in promoting their own shows.

Donations

To most people this is perhaps the most surprising cost associated with being an artist. Not only are artists frequently asked to donate works to charitable organizations for use in auctions (as a form of in-kind advertising), but many non-gallery exhibition opportunities are actually tied to charitable donations. One good example of this regionally is the annual BOX Art shows, where 20% of art sales from their exhibitions are donated to either a charitable partner (the annual show and sale), but also for additional exhibitions throughout the year where a 20% commission is paid to the BOX organization itself to “pay it forward” to help support future regional opportunities for artists.

Personally, I believe that everyone regardless of their industry has a responsibility to give back to their community if they are able, so I am happy to give something back. (I didn’t always feel this way, but the 5 years I spent as the creative director at rtraction.com—who hold corporate social responsibility as a core value—really opened my eyes to the importance of a more holistic approach to one’s community. I’m grateful.)

Tips for reducing the cost of making art.

Have a home studio—this is the simplest approach most artists take to reduce their costs. Not only can you save the $300-400 required to rent commercial/industrial space for a studio but you can offset the cost of your rent by claiming a portion of your rent and utilities as a legitimate business expense. The main drawbacks are a limitation in the size of work that you can produce, as well as a limitation on the techniques, materials and processes based on the requirements of handling toxic materials within the context of your living space. However, if you have the space and work with benign materials it’s a great way to reduce expenses, (assuming your partner can live with the clutter).

Make different art—depending on how strongly you feel about the work you wish to create you can save money by producing art that requires less material—let’s be honest, you can be an artist as cheaply as using an HB pencil and a piece of paper. In my case my practice has evolved over the past two decades to focus on texture as the primary mark-making approach. Unfortunately, textured work requires substantially more material than flat work. Lately, I’ve been exploring how to integrate higher-frequency visual textures which has naturally led to thinner applications of paint on the panels, but conversely it requires more time to produce the work and necessitates keeping a wider selection of mediums on hand. So far, it’s pretty much balanced out in terms of a cost benefit.

Use cheaper materials—as discussed above this is not really a viable option if you want to produce gallery-ready artwork that conforms to archivally-appropriate practices. When an artist uses higher quality materials, not only are they committing to work that will last, but are paying for a consistent experience when it comes to working with their materials. At a certain level of technical achievement consistency of materials is an important variable that can avoid the costs associated with having a piece “go bad” in the process.

For my practice, I don’t really have the luxury of painting over a textured surface to salvage the board when something goes wrong with the application. Much of my work relies on the ability of the media to dry with consistent transparency without cloudiness and a highly stable film formation that can withstand repeated”wettings” as additional layers are applied. Cheaper materials can have incomplete polymerization of the acrylic leading to disastrous consequences for such a layered, glazing-focused approach. I’ve learned my lesson.

Make less art—this is the poorest choice for anyone who feels a compulsion to create but one that many artists are faced with. I am coming to realize that as a full-time artist the best approach is to paint a lot of work and to place it in multiple venues to ensure that there’s a more consistent revenue stream from widely spaced sales. In discussing the economics of art with successful artists you inescapably come to realize it’s a numbers game—you need enough work to support a chain of galleries.

Deliver your own art—this may seem like a strange point to bring up, but if you own a vehicle you can save quite a bit of money by delivering your own art within your local area. Not only do you save on shipping and insurance charges, but when handling your own artwork you also save on reduced packaging costs. When you ship art, crating it for transport not only leaves you out the material and time expense, but can provide a hassle for your client in the disposal of the crate at the receiving end. I’m personally willing to drive my art a fair distance to a buyer because, believe me, it works out much cheaper than the alternative.

Apply for grants—although recent discussions about arts funding at all levels of government are painting a dire picture moving forward, the fact is that many artists simply neglect to apply for grants. Personally, I’m guilty of this, but my recent experience in receiving an exhibition assistance grant from the Ontario Arts Council has changed my thinking on it. The time required for many granting opportunities is time well spent, and the OAC has an incredibly streamlined application process for small grants.

Commissions—the mother of all expenses.

Lastly, artists can reduce their expenses by selling directly to their patrons when possible. Over the past two years I have focused primarily on community exhibition opportunities, not only because commercial galleries are few and far between in the Waterloo Region, but because the reality is that one of the single, largest costs for artists lies in dealer commissions.

The paradox  for many artists is that in order to sell more they need to partner with commercial galleries and dealers who charge steep commissions—typically in the range of 50%—the theory being that the increased exposure is worth the premium since selling art is what those businesses excel at because they have direct access to “serious” buyers. (Full disclosure—moving forward I am actively seeking commercial representation both within and outside the region). I guess I’ll find out.

The first thing many artists are advised to do by commercial galleries is to increase the amount they charge for their work. There’s a strange quantum nature to art pricing that reflects the multi-tiered nature of the market. On one hand, a large part of the reason most people don’t purchase art (although they continually profess how important art is for their community’s well-being) is how expensive it is.On the other hand, for art collectors, low prices are a strong disincentive to purchase because they need to justify their “investment” in the purchase—the value of the art is judged presumably by how expensive it is. Sadly, there’s a deep divide between art in the community and art in commercial galleries.

If you are a person who purchases art—and who wants to actively support artists in their community—I cannot stress enough how important it is to take the time to seek artists out directly. If you want to ensure your purchase directly benefits that artist you can more than double the profitability of any purchase for the artist without increasing the amount you spend, while keeping art affordable for a wider audience.

For example, on a direct sale of a $1400 painting, minus expenses, on average $1300 would go directly to the artist. For the exact same work, purchased at a gallery, after expenses and commissions are paid, less than half of the purchase price—$600—would go to the artist.

Discussions of the economics of the broader art market aside, which do you think is more sustainable for the greatest number of primary producers? In order for the artist to maintain their profitability in the sale they would need to more double their initial asking price. As an artist who understands that the majority of sales for most artists come from extended social networks, it is mildly troubling to say the least. The choice appears to be to participate in an approach that reinforces the disconnect between art and the general public or starve. It really is a catch-22.

In the next installment of “This Artist Life” I will be discussing what I did to get my art out there in 2012, examining the pros and cons of the various exhibition opportunities I participated in. Thanks for reading, and keep living creatively.