After initially being invited to give this workshop at the Lower East Side Printshop in 2014, I have been developing and adding to the materials. I give this workshop at least a couple of times every year, and always welcome the opportunity to share the materials with new audiences.
Description
Figuring out how to get paid as an artist and how to build a sustainable career are not trivial tasks. But the key to even beginning to tackle either is understanding how to advocate for yourself. Advocacy can take many forms, from asking the right questions, to knowing your field, to getting together with other artists to collectively make change.
In this talk, you’ll learn some important statistics about the realities of getting paid in the arts today, as well as some key strategies for advocating for yourself in ways that can not only help you, but also your fellow artists.
Myths of success in the arts combined with opaque reward systems make for a situation that leaves many artists struggling to even begin conversations about how their work is going to be shown or represented, not to mention how artists will be paid. But when these conversations don’t happen, every artist pays the price. This talk will start by helping to remove a bit of the opacity around payment, shedding light on when and how artists are getting paid for exhibiting their work in order to help you better understand where to begin. Then we’ll explore concrete strategies to help you advocate for reasonable terms when you’re exhibiting your work, terms that could benefit not only yourself, but also others in the field.
Please be in touch if you or your organization are interested booking this class.
