A British artist has taken to her blog to complain about her treatment by the Australian Greens. Lancaster-based artist Lucy Pass recieved an email from the party on 13 August. It wanted to use her painting, Will Paint For Food, in its campaign material for the forthcoming Australian election.
The email, from Policy Advisor Jay Tilley, said: ‘I am currently preparing materials for some of our election policies and one of them is what the Greens will do for “young and emerging artists”. The policy proposals are focussed around artists receiving a living wage for their work, so I thought your painting ‘will work for food’ [sic] would be a perfect image for it.’
Writing on her blog, Pass says: ‘My first reaction was one of excitement – of course I’m always delighted when somebody shows a keen interest in my work!’
However, Pass had previously allowed an image of the painting – which shows the artist holding a cardboard ‘Will Paint for Food’ sign – to be published for no fee by The Huffington Post, a decision she regretted. She was determined not to make the same mistake again.
‘At that time, I allowed it to be used in exchange for the exposure,’ she writes. ‘I wasn’t paid a penny. I received some criticism over this on Twitter, which in hindsight was completely fair – I played the part of the stereotypical skint and desperate artist and allowed my work to be used for free. I willingly contributed to the problem.”
Bureaucratic nightmare
Pass sent an email back to Tilley, asking for a licensing fee for use of the image. Having received no reply after nine days, she emailed again, to establish if the party still wanted to use her painting in its election material.
Twenty minutes later, she got her reply. Another image was now being used for the campaign because ‘getting funding approved from the party is a bureaucratic nightmare’ – and there simply wasn’t time to do this.
Pass is angry, but even-handed, about the experience: ‘Maybe, if he [Tilley] had planned it better, I might have been paid for the use of my art. I’ll never know,’ she writes. ‘Just like I’ll never know if I’d have actually ever received a response had I not poked him for an answer… All I know is that a political party running an arts funding proposal asked me for free artwork. Whether it was out of ignorance or just bare-faced nerve, it’s disgusting.’
Speaking to a-n, Pass added: “I feel greatly for the artist whose work they will eventually use, as it underlines the fact there are countless artists out there who are still under the illusion that working for free is something they must do in order to get noticed.
“I’d urge artists in a similar situation to not let themselves be blinded by ‘opportunities’ like this. Read between the lines of what is on offer – is it really going to get your talent noticed or are you just handing out a free favour to a perfect stranger who’s probably tried it on with ten other artists before you.”
a-n News contacted the Australian Greens, by email, for a comment. At the time of publication we are yet to receive a reply. Australia goes to the polls for the 2013 federal election on 7 September.
To read the blog post in full, visit littlelostsoul-uk.blogspot.co.uk
