Freelance work in difficult times.

[dashinvaine]

I wonder if anyone has andy advice/thoughts/stories on surviving as a freelance artist in the present economic climate. Are there still clients around? Are people having to diversify, how has the world of illustration and concept art been affected by the Cerdit Crunch. What is the best thing to do?

[Jem'ennuie]

Learn another skill. Just learning art and having no other skills today means leading an insecure life for beginners.

When there's an economic crisis, the first one to lose their job are artists.

[JonZ_]

well not necessarily the case here... The first who lose their job was the automotive and airline industry worker. And the question is also vague. What field of art you speak of, because not all field is affected much than another.

[J Wilson]

So far my own work hasn't changed at all, but then I've never been entirely freelance (just a few regular clients).

One thing that has often been true, is even in hard times people find the money somehow to continue to enjoy whatever entertainment they prefer. It's perhaps the human nature to seek distraction from daily problems. If that holds true then entertainment should do better than many industries, although there may be a transition to people seeking more budget concious fun. I know a few people who regularly go to movies and dine out who will cut back on those and spend more time at home playing an MMO, because $15 a month for an MMO is pretty cheap for a month's fun.

In theory, this might be a great time for stay at home fun like games, books, movie rentals, etc.

[Chris Bennett]

The selling of work through galleries (4 deal with my work) has completely tanked. Sales were trickling along nicely and then practically nothing for the last 3 months. Commissioned work has kept things going for me so far. I think it is a question of running a light tight ship to ride this one out.

[quickreaver]

That's interesting to hear, Chris. I was entertaining the idea of revisting my traditional media, with an eye toward galleries, but what with this economy (and your anecdotal evidence) I think I'll coast for a while. My freelance illustration hasn't been effected one bit, though...if anything, it's picked up! Go figure...

[Craig D]

While I don't know how it is in the art world, in many other companies
they lay people off in bad times and then bring in freelancers to cover
what needs doing. Independant contractors are cheaper for companies in the short term.

[DavePalumbo]

speaking personally, I feel like work has been on an upswing for me since December, both picking up new clients and getting new work from past clients. Could be a fluke, but that's why every freelancer should have at least 6 months of expenses saved in the bank if possible. No unemployment checks in this field.

The gallery scene seems completely hit or miss at the moment, though I've always felt it to be a rather unreliable business by comparison to illustration. Once again in my own personal experience, my gallery did an incredible month in sales for January, but had their worst month ever in 18 years of business just before that, so ???

[KonnA]

Man Freelancing sounds like an absolute gamble. Pretty scary.

[JonZ_]

it is, especially if you live in Tchernobyl ;)

[Rabid]

I'm with Dave on this, I don't understand why but my freelance has been blowing up recently to where my weekends are gone. I sold two pieces in a gallery, got a book cover commision, a band t shirt commision and and album commision from a different client all last week. I didn't see this coming at all...usually it is a steady stream of 2-3 projects a month!

[DavePalumbo]

Man Freelancing sounds like an absolute gamble. Pretty scary.

honestly, I can't see myself working any other way. I think it may just be a personality thing.

[Chris Bennett]

I'm with Dave on this. But apart from the temperament thing, freelancing means that you don't find yourself all of a sudden out of work. If your client base is reasonably wide then you can keep an eye on things and up the 'cold calling' if commissions are getting slow. In one sense you are more secure than those with a regular pay check - in effect they only have one client, all beit a good one!

[Eveningkiss]

i still get asked for sketches or basic oils at times but its not as steady as it has been in the past. Dont let art be your main focus in life JUST yet. by all means keep your art up and strong but.. pick up an extra skill off to the side until more clients come back.

[kennygeeze]

Learn another skill. Just learning art and having no other skills today means leading an insecure life for beginners.

When there's an economic crisis, the first one to lose their job are artists.

What are you basing that on? Actual data or just assumptions?

[Uli]

I've heard all kinds of contradictory things during the last months. One gallery person told me that an economic crisis is good for art, another told my that all entertainment sells well during a crisis, like Hollywood did in the 1930s. On the other hand, a friend of mine who is a professional operatic and choir singer had a very bad year and so had all her (equally professional) friends. And she never had problems living from her singing before.
On a curious note: The biggest German candy producer has never made so much money as during the last year (though this might be related to the prohibition of smoking that started in 2008 too).

[Chris Bennett]

Interesting that, Uli. It certainly makes sense that escapism will sell during tough times. My wife is a localisation freelancer (translator) in the computer games industry and has not seen any reduction in her work load, which fits with this idea. It is on this very theory that I am shifting my subject matter for the galleries. I've been offered a one man show this year and I am having to seriously reconsider what I had in mind showing based on the hard fact that 'feelgood' subjects always sell better. In difficult economic times it is practically the only stuff you are going to sell. In my experience anyway.

[Uli]

Hi Chris- Feelgood stuff? bugger... ;-)

[Chris Bennett]

Don't worry Uli, its taken me years to realise this simple fact.......or admit it to myself.:rolleyes:

[dose]

Working in the games industry I've heard a similar theory to what Uli mentioned. What I've heard, more specifically, is that product or services that offer a high or long amount of entertainment relative to their cost tend to do very well in bad times. In the great depression, it was films. Today, for $50 you can get 300+ hours of gameplay/entertainment/escapism with some of the games on the market.

[dashinvaine]

I heard that rather than feelgood stuff that dark gothicry seems to do well in hard times, as fantasy horror can be an escape from mundane misfortune.

[Chris Bennett]

dashinvaine: You are probably right about that concerning films, games and graphic novels. But as for pictures that are bought in galleries and end up on people's home walls my experience of this is definitely that the feelgood stuff is the horse you put your money on. This is the case at any time, but people do not want their doubts endorsed, they want their hope sanctioned.
I do not blame them either. One of the real problems for painters selling their work in galleries is to try and see the work as if you were not a painter. A guy who works in an office, or a woman running a small business, they couldn't care less about the kind of things that hound the maker of the pictures morning, noon and night. They are understandably unaware of them and they are quite rightly unimportant to them. A picture is as good as it looks.
And when things ain't good they want to feel as good as it looks.

[DavePalumbo]

I say never try to second guess the market, because it just dilutes your work. Make the pictures that *you* want to see and your audience will find them. No matter what, you know that you're making yourself happy and people tend to pick up on that.

It may be blunt, but steering your artwork to please others before yourself is the road to mediocrity in my opinion.

[cmalidore]

I say never try to second guess the market, because it just dilutes your work. Make the pictures that *you* want to see and your audience will find them. No matter what, you know that you're making yourself happy and people tend to pick up on that.

It may be blunt, but steering your artwork to please others before yourself is the road to mediocrity in my opinion.

I'd like to point out that last year this was my worst mistake and I'm still paying for it. You can't predict the market, but you can pull out your part of that market by doing what you are enthusiastic about.

[Chris Bennett]

I say never try to second guess the market, because it just dilutes your work. Make the pictures that *you* want to see and your audience will find them. No matter what, you know that you're making yourself happy and people tend to pick up on that.

It may be blunt, but steering your artwork to please others before yourself is the road to mediocrity in my opinion.

But you are always governed by your environment. If your agent rings you up and wants a painting of a guy falling out of a building you don't paint someone walking down the street. If someone wants their portrait painted you agree that it's going to be a likeness - should it occur to you that you would rather put your girlfriend's head on it instead, you don't go ahead and do that do you? You steer your inclinations to what the client is asking you to do. When the Pope asked Michelangelo to paint his ceiling it is on record that Michelangelo did not want to do it, prefering sculpture. But he did it to please the Pope so that he could get on with the tomb.

The same thing applies to the gallery market. One sees that the feelgood paintings in one's ouvre are selling. The economy is tanking. You are a fool if you supply the gallery with work that doesn't come from this side of your personality.

This whole buisiness of the artist as someone trying to protect an imutable gift from commerce is a fallacy that comes from a romantic view of artists that began in the late 19th century. If you do something honestly and to the best of you ability it will always be yours, whatever you are asked to do.
So, to set yourself (as opposed to the client) the task of picking 'feelgood' subjects and to do them with commitment and honesty is no different to responding to a client's wishes that the portrait of their children is set in a sunny garden.

[dashinvaine]

How important is having an artist's agent in this day and age, speaking of agents?

I can see both sides of the coin on the issue of the artistic purity v. doing what customers want. I suspect that pleasing one's self is a luxury reserved for the artist of independent means, unless one's individual vision happens to coincide with what someone is willing and able to buy.

[Chris Bennett]

I would say that the agent is just one of the elements that influence the subject of what you paint. They are one of the commisioners. I get a reasonable amount of work from a portrait agent who are nationally well known and established, which means that people will be put in touch with me via their publicity. I also have an illustration agent.

However, the best way of staying doing what you want to do and getting paid for it is to watch the gallery sales of your work and figure out a way of keeping doing what interests you that also fits what is disappearing out of the gallery front door. It's tricky, because the answer is not to wind up aping some kind of formula that seems to be selling, which leads to what Dave Pulumbo was talking about, but rather to 'be your own client'.