Profession; The
Business of Art
I once asked a publisher of a line of books for a major New York company how he dared offer so little to a legendary illustrator for a book cover in the line, and he told me, “Well, I shouldn’t, but money is tight on this line and I know heÕll never argue - he’d be painting even if he wasn’t paid at all!”
Wow! This is one of the problems we’re up against. Our devotion to our work is well known, and commonly exploited in the art buying media. The company negotiating to buy your art nearly always claims to have no budget for it. The project may be undercapitalized, or it may not. Often, as an excuse for offering so little, they’ll tell you how much they had to pay other vendors on the project, intending to make you feel sympathetic with an insult. A lot of the artists reading this run their studio business better than I do, and have highly developed negotiation skills; but many artists are isolated or insecure and can be convinced to undervalue their work when asked to bargain in a business situation where the client pleads poverty. Some artists have other sources of income and are not dependent on their art to make a living, so they are less inclined to take the time and effort it takes to make a good deal; they just want to do the work. A few are new to the field and so thrilled to be asked to work professionally, that they accept any terms just to see their work published, without even knowing it’s a bad deal. All of these situations can be, and sometimes are, used by buyers to keep prices down and conditions poor.
A professional artist’s first concern must always be his or her own work, of course; but we are at a point, I believe, when we might want to look at the larger picture. Individual professional standards need to be set, and that is usually done by giving some consideration to the trade-offs between one’s own immediate career advancement and actions which nurture an environment that is good for all professionals and add prestige to the field.
Yes, there is competition for work in this field, and you may wonder why you should be concerned if you are able to undercut your competition. That’s just good business, isn’t it? Well, yes and no. Yes, if you’re using your reputation as a dinosaur artist as a stepping stone to some other career. (Although, what that might be I can’t imagine!) No, if you plan to be a professional dinosaur artist for the rest of your life. You’re going to want to be paid well enough to work full-time at your art and have a mortgage, kids, travel, retirement, whatever, and that could be hard to manage if the industry standards are “anything goes”, as you will find the next time someone undercuts you.
Art buyers have power and traditionally wield that power to divide and conquer. Enlightened self-interest dictates that, while fulfillment of the short-term ambition might be seductive, an artist is better served for the rest of his/her career by making sure the professional field he/she has entered is highly valued. Advancing one’s career in a field that is poorly regarded is sort of pointless, and it is possible to destroy an art market by allowing standards to slip too low to make work worthwhile.
Similarly, regard for the work and working conditions of the individual artist, and a higher-paying market can be manipulated into being perceived as the standard with just a little effort and communication on the part of the artists themselves. The demand for scientifically accurate dinosaur reconstructions is growing at an amazing rate. There is a lot of work to go around. We have a shot at really improving conditions and the perceived value of accurate dinosaur art. I think we should take it.