The tone of this maybe a bit strong as it was originally a response to someone stating that art should be free and to charge is greedy because it will never be a job. The below was posted as a reply, and although I have modified it slightly to take out some of the questions directed at the person I was replying to it does still read as if directed at a person. I apologise for this and please try to read the drift of what I am saying, rather than feeling it is a personal attack on any person.

Michaelangelo, was commissioned while alive. His work isn't just expensive because he's dead, it's because he was great at what he did - making masterpieces that other people could not do. Good art takes skill, practice, hours and hours of work. I don't yet take commissions for art because I do not think I'm good enough to be providing a service. That said I am paid to make wedding stationery which in many ways it's the same thing. It's drawing and design at a price because some people can't or won't make their own so I provide the service of making the stationery. Artists provide a service in that they provide a product a client requires or desires. Have you looked into the psychological effect of artwork on hospital patients? It can have a huge impact, this hobby you think is worthless.

Graphic Design? The whole profession was started by artists, it, in itself involves a lot of art. Architectural Visualisation? Illustration for books etc? Any packaging design? The concept artists who sketch out the games characters for your computer games and had their designs basically set before the character ever made it onto a computer? No, you're right, there's no value in 'drawing' what so ever. Architects don't draw when designing schools, hospitals, police stations etc do they? (I'm a qualified Architectural Technician, by the way, with a BSc Hons first class degree in the subject alongside qualifications in both fine art and graphic design).

Also, commission work is often some of the hardest work mentally. Drawing as a hobby is easier, you only draw what you want to draw and only have your own pre-conceived conceptions to deal with. Commissions mean spending hours on something you don't necessarily want to draw and that is really hard to do, and it makes it very hard to get the drawing right. You also have to meet client expectations which can be very difficult, especially if they keep changing their minds which clients for anything (art, wedding stationery, architecture) often do. It takes a great deal of dedication and patience to fight through that boredom, frustration, etc with the desire to simply do a good job. No, it's not manual labour, but there are lots of jobs which don't involve manual labour that are still valued. Art takes skill, is that not enough for it to be worth something? It takes a knowledge and understanding that some people just don't have. That's why it SHOULD be paid for. The reason artists charge is for time, effort, materials used.

People buy art because they enjoy it, even if it isn't essential to their life. People buy computer games because they enjoy them, not because they are essential. By the theory that art should be free as it’s not an essential job then games, literary fiction, chocolate bars, sports equipment, etc should all be free, because none of those things are essential so why pay someone to make them? Yet within art and literature history is documented. Art is often used by historians to understand the past, to understand the culture of a time. Art is documentation of life as well as a nice thing to have (though maybe not in the case of some furry art, but certainly within fine art and fan-fic art). Also, why should artists draw for others for free? They could just draw for themselves as a hobby, they then wouldn't need to deal with clients, changes of mind, others expectations... At which case, art would fade because artists would never share their work (why would they need to?). If art is valueless, maybe it doesn't matter if no one has any art other than artists themselves? A lot of people would disagree with such a move because they do want and value art.

So, in the statement that it is greedy to charge for something which is a hobby and will never be a job you have successfully ignored the professions which rely on art and drawing to function. You have also ignored the cultural importance of art and the impact looking at art as a historian has on our understanding of our past. You have ignored the impact art has upon the psyche, ignoring why it is strategically placed in hospitals. In making such a statement you have simply shown your total ignorance on the subject, that ignorance is perhaps why you see no value. For you it is simply 'drawing' but for the professional artists amongst us it is more than that, and that is why our art has value. We provide a service, for a purpose, be it to make others happy, to document the world, to work for a graphic design studio or in an architectural practice. That is why artists SHOULD charge commission.

Oh, and if anyone is interested in what specifically caused this outburst, please see here... http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/...../#cid:28128636

EDIT: Author has removed the journal but most of it is documented here http://benanderson.homeip.net/lolFa.....%20Artists.htm

You can also follow the repercussion journal posts made by the author here: http://www.furaffinity.net/journals/bloodfand69/ the 'Sorry post' http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3742790/ is only slightly less antagonistic and is rapidly heading towards the hundreds of comments the original got.