This blog is not meant to be a rant, although I do apologise in advance if I get a little, well, passionate once in a while.
It stems from that New Year tradition of deciding this is the year! The year of some measurable success, the year of earning some amount that may feed and house me and of making time for my work. Good intentions ahoy. But I have been here before, and although I had a great year last year, took part in some really interesting exhibitions and got more work done than any other year, I made less than £5,000. How could this be if I was working all hours and being incredibly proactive?
I love that a-n publishes good practice guides and recommended daily rates for artists and all of those incredibly useful and inspiring documents, but I need to find a way that these can actually be put into practice.
I have knowingly chosen an industry that is driven by people who work for free because of a need or love for/of art and is notoriously hard to make a living out of. But it is possible to be paid properly; as artists are increasingly slotted into new projects and policies to make them whole, funding is made available and there are organisations such as creative partnerships who pay recommended rates. But is it the case that I have to include children or communities in my practice to obtain these rewards? I will be looking into it…
