How to Survive, Financially, as an Artist

Some days it seems as though Pretty Lady is the last person in the world to be cavalierly dispensing Financial Advice. Indeed, it seems as though she has spent much of the last twenty years in biting fingernails, tearing out hair, nursing ulcers, counting pennies, and slinging accumulated debt from low-interest credit card to lower-interest credit card. However, when Pretty Lady looks around her, she notes two things: she's still here, and she's still making art.

So if you, darlings, wish to be here and making art in twenty years, you could do worse than to listen to Pretty Lady.

The first thing to bear in mind, when contemplating a career of artistic semi-solvency, is that there is no one-size-fits all method for coping with the problems inherent upon artistic survival. For instance, when Pretty Lady was on the brink of graduating, for the very first time, with an honors art degree and no obviously marketable skills, the word in the halls was, "Drive a UPS truck!"

This advice filled Pretty Lady with deep horror. Paint-stained overalls may be a badge of lapsed patrician honor, forgivably eccentric, but once a person dons a pair of chocolate-brown shorts and matching shirt, all hope of re-admittance to the global cultural aristocracy is closed forever. It seemed a fine thing, at nineteen, to wallow in brotherhood with the underclass, but when the reality of endless double-parking on hectic avenues loomed before her, Pretty Lady, sadly, faltered.

Fortunately, driving a UPS truck turned out to be neither Pretty Lady's best nor only option. Which brings us to our principles.

1) Play to your strengths.

One must never lose sight of one's goal, which is to spend as much time as possible in the studio, creating Great Art. To do so, one must have 1) a studio and 2) time to spend in it. Thus, one's financial objectives must center upon earning the most money in the least possible amount of time, preferably legally.

So if you have a knack for computer systems administration ($80-$150/hr) or stripping ($100-$500+/night), it is both foolish and masochistic to contemplate a job making espresso ($7/hr, plus minimal tips) or working behind a desk at a gallery (free-$10/hr) just because people who make espresso and sit in galleries project a hipper-than-thou attitude while doing so.

(In fact, it is important to remember that anyone who puts on such an attitude is doing so because this attitude is literally their only asset. A word to the wise.)

2) Prioritize.

Pretty Lady has lost count of the wannabe artists she has talked to who 'hoped to be able to afford a studio, someday.' Hello?

When Pretty Lady graduated from art school, her high-priority list was as follows:

1) Studio space.
2) Food.

Her no-priority list included, but was not limited to:

1) New car.
2) Fancy neighborhood.
3) TV, and all cable permutations thereof.
4) Any newly invented or newly available electronic gadgetry.
5) Haircuts.
6) New clothing, except insofar as that required to produce income, and to prevent public nudity.
7) Eating out.
8) Drugs.
9) Health insurance.

Of course, these lists have changed radically over time, and as Pretty Lady's experience has expanded, so have her priorities. However, she continues to execute a simple cost-benefit analysis every time she contemplates a purchase: to wit, "Is this item worth the number of hours I will have to spend working to pay for it?" If the answer is 'no,' she does not need a Palm pilot.

It is important to make these sorts of priority lists, and use them to calculate exactly how much income is required to meet one's priorities. Then make a calculation as to the minimum wage one must earn in order to spend at least 20 hours per week in the studio. If a job does not meet this minimum, the job is not acceptable, at least not in the long term. Period.

3) Civil service.

It sometimes seems to Pretty Lady that the arts and the civil service were made for one another. A civil service job requires no initiative, no overtime, and no mental energy to speak of. It provides benefits, and is nearly impossible to get fired from. If artists do not take civil service jobs, they will be filled by vaguely malicious drones with the intellect, imagination and humanitarian goodwill of a fruit fly; an artist will at least put in the requisite hours of bureaucratic drudgery with a bemused smile and a colorful wardrobe. It is a win-win situation.

4) Healthcare.

When Pretty Lady was considering study in the healing professions, some years back, she took a look at the cost/wage ratio in several fields. She noticed at the time that Registered Nursing required a large amount of expensive schooling, with an inexcusably low annual salary at the end of it. So she went into massage therapy instead.

Since then, there has been a nursing shortage of epic proportions. RNs now make upwards of $65K a year, and the schools are jammed. You had better reserve your spot now.

5) Familial supplementation.

At last, the Sordid Truth arises. If you have a Trust Fund, please go away. Hit the "Rent Fund" button on your way out.

If, however, you have a decent middle-class family who is honestly concerned about your welfare, treat them kindly. Do not be asking for handouts in order to flush it away on silly things like rent. You can earn your rent yourself.

Instead, consider asking for a loan of a down-payment on a piece of real estate, or a co-sign on a mortgage. Real estate is very rarely a bad investment, when one considers that even if the selling price goes down, for some insane reason, you would still have lost more by renting.

6) Expatriation.

There are still countries in the world where U.S. currency is worth a great deal more, in purchasing power, than the local one. These countries are growing fewer every day, so you had better go to South America, Indonesia and Thailand while you still can. While you are abroad, tell everyone you are Canadian. For obvious reasons.

7) Self-employment.

A few things you can sell, online or on the streets of foreign places: jewelry, clothing, fancy lotion, soap, CDs. Only sell this last if you are the performer on the CD, and if you are good. It is easier to make a living, singing in small-town bars in foreign countries, than by Getting Discovered in centers of world capitalism, by the way.

8) Blue-collar employment.

Do you have any idea what competent carpenters, electricians, plumbers and housepainters make, these days?

9) Grants.

Please.

Pretty Lady must offer a very serious caveat. If you are young, and brash, and brilliant, and optimistic, and confident, and you look at NYFA Source or various Arts Council websites and think, "There are TONS of grants out there! I'll just apply for them!" you will be flipping burgers and waiting tables for a very long time.

Go ahead and apply, of course. Just don't predicate your future existence as an artist upon the receipt of one.

10) MFAs.

Don't. Just don't.


You will note that in the above list, Pretty Lady has said absolutely nothing about dealers, gallerists, art fairs, teaching jobs, government assistance or other Art World paraphernalia. This is because it is her fixed, experiential conviction that if artists in general maintain a state of emotional passivity and financial dependence upon these things, the condition of Art and Artists will continue its dismal and precipitate decline into decadence, inanity, and Fatuous Pandering. This is not to say that there are not honest dealers with Taste out there; it is to say that there will be more of them if the lousy ones stop getting away with it.