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Most Opportunites Come With A Pay Check
9 years ago
To all my dear friends out there working day in and day out making art their profession:
You deserve to be paid well. Take no shit in this area. None. What a client is paying for is not just your skill - but the time put into making the image, the years of practice and learning it took for you to get to that level of skill and for you to be able to live while making what they require. That's what income is supposed to do.
One major thing that these people who offer little to no income to artists like to say is :
"Well if you don't take this opportunity then someone else will."
This is true. And it's unfortunate not because -you- missed an opportunity, but some poor uninformed artist unaware of their value as a professional or as a person ( or worse: both). Will waste their time on this project spending what valuable time they have there finding better jobs. Better opportunities.
All good opportunities come with a paycheck. All professional entrepreneurs and business folk alike pay liveable wages to skilled artists. Not simply because they just like to throw around money, but because they believe in investing in the product they are getting. They know the artist shouldn't be focused on bills, paying rent, or making ends meet when working on their product. That money goes to eliminating distractions from the time they could be spending on their project.
So, my dear friends, colleagues, peers, and artists do not indulge people who only want to take advantage of you. They aren't worth your time.
Your TIME is valuable. Your WORK is valuable. Your SKILL is valuable.
YOU. ARE. VALUABLE.
Let no one convince you otherwise.
You deserve to be paid well. Take no shit in this area. None. What a client is paying for is not just your skill - but the time put into making the image, the years of practice and learning it took for you to get to that level of skill and for you to be able to live while making what they require. That's what income is supposed to do.
One major thing that these people who offer little to no income to artists like to say is :
"Well if you don't take this opportunity then someone else will."
This is true. And it's unfortunate not because -you- missed an opportunity, but some poor uninformed artist unaware of their value as a professional or as a person ( or worse: both). Will waste their time on this project spending what valuable time they have there finding better jobs. Better opportunities.
All good opportunities come with a paycheck. All professional entrepreneurs and business folk alike pay liveable wages to skilled artists. Not simply because they just like to throw around money, but because they believe in investing in the product they are getting. They know the artist shouldn't be focused on bills, paying rent, or making ends meet when working on their product. That money goes to eliminating distractions from the time they could be spending on their project.
So, my dear friends, colleagues, peers, and artists do not indulge people who only want to take advantage of you. They aren't worth your time.
Your TIME is valuable. Your WORK is valuable. Your SKILL is valuable.
YOU. ARE. VALUABLE.
Let no one convince you otherwise.
Even this site started as a small fan site. It wasn't until it started getting larger that they put in ads and stuff to make revenue from it.
Keep acting like artists are perfect and don't make mistakes.
Bravo. I support every word of it, and I hope all the artists out there can support, or at least supplement, their lives with their passion.
The reality may not be as tenable, but I'll be sure to save a few pennies and invest in artists that I value.
If you starve to death, you'll never get rewarded.