ArtistsNetwork.com 79PUTTING IT TOGETHER
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
(bls.gov) has comprehensive data on
occupational employment and wages
for fine artists, including painters,
sculptors and illustrators. It presents
the data with clear tables and maps to
help artists better understand the par-
ticulars of their region. For artists, the
mean (average) hourly wage nation-
wide is $28.04—but that average
includes significantly higher rates, so
the median wage of $23.74 (the wage
at which half the artists earned more
and half earned less) gives a better
reflection of what you might expect to
earn. Given these figures, $25 an hour
is a reasonable place to start for your
work. Of course, this depends on loca-
tion, industry and other factors, but
having a “rule of thumb” number pro-
vides a baseline from which to begin
the valuation of your work.
From this starting point, you
then take into account expenses—
materials, studio space, utilities,
assistants and other overhead costs.
Some artists like to spread the over-
head costs evenly across all works
while others know their monthly
costs and divide the total by the hours
spent producing each piece.
Since most buyers expect similarly
sized works in the same medium
to be about the same price, don’t
let a particularly expensive paint
used for one picture radically alter
its pricing unless you’re prepared
to explain why that paint made the
work inherently out of the ordinary.
If you’re adapting to a new medium,
you may use more of it than neces-
sary for the piece and will have to
manage pricing accordingly. If you’re
learning a new technique and take
more time doing the work, don’t
charge more for those early works.
Instead, you may wish to account for
a certain number of new processes
each year, consider how much time
each will take to adopt and thenconsider those “practice” hours as
a part of overhead costs.STOP TO ASSESS
Some buyers will walk away because
your costs are beyond them. If this
happens repeatedly, you may need to
reevaluate your prices. The occasional
demur, however, is normal. Don’t take
it personally or become overwrought
explaining some labor-intensive
process. Art lovers and collectors aren’t
buying your time; they’re buying the
final work that they love and want to
see every day. As Picasso explained to
a woman who balked at his price for
a 5-minute sketch—it took his whole
lifetoproducethatwork.C.J. Kent is a freelance writer and editor,
as well as a professor at Montclair State
University. She also founded Script and
Type (scriptandtype.com), which helps
people express themselves eff ectively in
writing and in person.