JAWBREAKER SEASON 2, EPISODE 1:

HOW TO AVOID BEING RIPPED OFF AS AN ARTIST

WE REFLECT ON OUR EXPERIENCES AND SHARE SOME USEFUL TIPS WE’VE LEARNED.

Transcription

Georgia Tooke: We’re live!! I’m so excited! We’re back, season 2… waiting for my girl to join us!!

Shae Myles: Yay!!!

GT: Yay!!! It’s so good to see you!

SM: Honestly…. same. I’m so excited to come back and talk to you. This is like, my favourite thing in the entire world to do. So… yeah, let’s do a little catch up! 

GM: Yes, cos we haven’t done a JAWBREAKER since our season finale at the very beginning of December, and it’s February now, so we have been working on a lot of things. We kinda took January to do a whole bunch of stuff behind the scenes. Ohmigosh where do we even start?! Well I guess first of all, our second meeting of our Book Club is tomorrow, same time, 12PM PST, 8PM GMT, and that’s for Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad, so that’s exciting. Then we have our website launch tomorrow!! I don’t know if you saw our last website, designed my me, it was… functional. It did what it needed to do, but Shae took the reins on this one and it looks so so good. I’m going to just have this on my desktop forever, it’s so so exciting! And we also have something new that will also be coming with the website, and I don’t wanna say any more, but that’s also coming. Then we also, if you noticed on Instagram, this past Tuesday, we posted the first of four Black Artist Spotlights for Black History Month, which we also found out is in February in North America, and is in October in the UK, so we will be doing it again in October! The more ya know!

SM: Which is really good because it means that we get to showcase more artists over the course of the year, and celebrate Black artists more than just once. 

GT: And doing our own research, like that was part of the reason… I feel like art school failed us in not showing us Black artists and so we are finding out about them on our own and showing them to you guys. So we’ll be posting another one next Tuesday. Um… Is that all?

SM: Yeah I think so! We can just get into it now, we’ve got a couple people here. So, welcome to the first episode of Season 2! We are so excited, we had so much fun planning this season, we’ve got so much in the works that we hope you guys will enjoy. But today we’re going to be talking about how to avoid getting ripped off as an artist. So the reason we wanted to talk about this is because over the course of our friendship, we have talked about all the terrible experiences and just been like “why did nobody tell us” or give us hints… any sort of advice to have this not happen to you. Whether it’s been an outcome that’s left us feeling under-appreciated, or underpaid or honestly just wanting to cry, or like, [actually] crying, we just thing that’s it’s really important for any artist, at any stage, whether you’re a student or not, you should be getting paid for the work you’re doing in some respect. Yeah so, as graduates now, I think it’s important to highlight … we’ve had the experience and we wanted to share the ~shit~ with you, because there has been a lot of ~shit.~

So yeah, we’re gonna tell one of the stories we have each, and also share with you some learning opportunities that we may have taken from those experiences. Also, I’ve put together our resources which aren’t available today unfortunately because our website’s not up just yet, but they will be up to view tomorrow which is the 7th February. But everything that’s on the resources will also be covered on the live today, [but] they will be accessible after today. So yeah! Do you want to just start?

GT: Yes! I would love to! Okay, so. I feel like many people I know have already heard this long story, but I will share here. I wanna keep some level of anonymity so I’m not gonna share the name of the company. But in the fall of 2018, I got an Instagram message from this fashion company based in the states, that I was a huge fan of. A while back, they had a lil contest of winning a gift card if you sent them a piece of art, and so I did that, and so that’s how they knew about me. So they messaged me, and were like, “hey, we liked your work, we want to commission you to do a bigger painting for us for our studio,” and I remember getting the message and being like oh my god this is HUGE!!!! This is a huge company, they have over 400K followers on Instagram, this is my big break, I’m gonna make it. I was so excited, I didn’t even think twice about it, I was like absolutely yes, let’s do it! Like, everything happened so quickly, that one of the things I would suggest to anyone is to really take your time when you’re about to accept a commission to do work for someone, and really think about it before you’re just like “yessss omg absolutely I’ll do whatever you want for whatever!! So they wanted a large-ish painting, like 2 ft x 3 ft, and they were like, oh do you want to be paid with money or in merch. And this was my big mistake number 1, or I guess maybe number 2. Number one would have been not being like, “hey, I’m in the middle of school, of like three different projects, this is not gonna be my top priority right now.” And so this was kinda something that just stressed me out throughout the whole process, being like “omg I need to work on this” and just poor time management. So I guess mistake number two, was seeing that and being like “ohhh merch or money.. well, there is this one piece fo merchandise that I’ve wanted from you guys for the past like, five years of me following you, that would be super cool.” This piece of merchandise was valued at $60, so when I threw that out there, I thought it was kinda like … this is so dumb, honestly, talking about it now, like, I just threw this out there, and they were like, “yeah sure! We’ll send it to you!” And I was like “oh maybe they would give me more merch” because obviously this is not going to be $60 of my time. That’s kinda all that was discussed, that it was just gonna be, “here’s a piece of merchandise, okay whatever.” So then a month goes by, I’m finishing everything for my final crits, and I finally get round to actually painting this. Then needing to go get it shipped to America, which if you have shipped anything internationally, that’s larger than a letter size, it’s such a hassle and is so expensive. And by the time all was said and done, I had spent over $170 on just materials and shipping, and had put over 20 hours of my time into this. And so when I finally messaged them being like “hey it’s done, it’s on its way, here’s the tracking number, so excited,” they’re like “okay awesome! We’ll send you your merchandise.” And I was like “… okay but, I know we didn’t talk about this, but I want to be paid for the materials and shipping.” And they were kinda digging their feet in a lil bit, once I told them it was $170, but eventually they were like “okay we’ll PayPal you that.” And so they PayPal’d me exactly the amount for materials and shipping, and so I saw that money redeemed, that was fine, but if my time was worth ~nothing~ maybe that would be fine. The worst part about it is I never saw the merchandise… they never sent it to me. I ended up leaving for Scotland [for exchange semester], and so I kind of put it out of my mind. And when I got back from Scotland, still never got it in the mail, they messaged me saying… all they said was “did you receive?” And I said… “no.” And they said “okay, we’ll send it again,” and then they never sent it! So I just never got paid for the work.

SM: And also had to ask to get reimbursed for the money that you put into the project!!! 

GT: Yeah!! And that, I felt like I was asking a lot. I was really nervous to be like, “can you pls pay me for the shipping and the materials”, and they were just like “okay… didn’t talk about this.” So, I’m sure we’re gonna get to all of the things that I learned from that, but I’m sure everyone listening right now can see so many red flags and mistakes that I made throughout the entire process, but I was in my third year of art school, I was young and dumb, didn’t know any better, and we’re gonna get to what we can pull out of that to examine. Um, do you want to share your story Shae?

SM: Yeah, sure! I mean, mine was more recent than that one, mine was actually just last year, as in roughly a year ago now. In January I was contacted about a potential commission, that people though that …. I’m also gonna be fairly anonymous here because I don’t want to cause any beef but, its just a hilarious story that I can’t wait to tell, and if you know me personally, then you probably will have heard me yelling about this. Yeah, so I was contacted basically last January, about installations, because my end of year third year show was an installation. I went to a meeting to find out more about the meeting, really fell in love with the ethos of the place, connected with the manager/owner/project manager, and was really excited to do it. But made the fatal error from the very beginning of just being too much of a pussy to talk about money from the get go. When I was sat there, being like “oh right, okay okay…” understanding more about the project, I was like “okay now ask about money” and I just never did. I completely take that as my fault, but like, we’re dealing with a business, and a grown man, so also… not entirely my fault, but also my fault. So anyway, I ended up putting in upwards of 20 hours into this project on site, so it wasn’t something I could work on, dip in and out of in my studio at Gray’s, I was there on site. I was finishing up my dissertation, preparing for degree show, working part time, doing other life stuff, I was busy! I shouldn’t have taken the project on, like, I just shouldn’t have. Because I was giving up the more important things for this project, in the hopes that it would give me something else at the end of it. Which obviously it didn’t, because otherwise I wouldn’t be telling this story. So anyway this is the majority of February last year, and then in the middle of March, we got put into lockdown, it was unsafe for me to go out to the site, like I wasn’t allowed to leave my house. So I sent an email and was like “this is my invoice so far, the project isn’t finished yet, but as soon as everything gets back to ~normal~ I’ll be back to finish it! But I was like, I need to be paid for what I’ve done so far, so here’s an invoice. I put together an invoice, I had done that before, was familiar with how an invoice works, and there were no errors on my part or anything like that, and within like, an hour, the person got back to me and was like “yeah there’s been a mistake in your hourly rate, so please relook at this invoice.” So I got back, within ten minutes, and was like “there’s been no mistake. My rate is my rate, and I’m worth every penny of that, I’m a fourth year, I’m graduating in a matter of months, so I deserve to be paid.” And then… nothing. I didn’t hear anything for months, and it was only when I was un-furloughed from my part time job, my boss there was like “have you heard anything about that project?” And I was like, “oh, no, nothing.” And he was like “you need to fuckin chase that up.” So I ended up chasing it up, twice before I got a response. I think the reason that I got a response was because I was like “you’re maybe not getting my emails, so what I’ll do is just pop down and see you” and on that day, after that third email, they ended up getting back to me, being like “we can’t pay you the amount you stipulated, would you be okay with this amount?” And I was like okay fine, I just kinda want to forget about this and never think about it again… another thing as well!!! There was no communication throughout any of that, and when I did finally hear back it was like October time, I didn’t get paid until September-October time, and I’d seen on instagram that somebody else had finished it. So like, they didn’t even say to me, “oh you know, maybe we could pay you the full amount but you could just finish it” and I would have got a couple hundred quid more if had actually finished the project. Anyway, it was just an absolute shambles, it was so unprofessional, on my part, for first of all not saying “this is my rate” [right at the beginning], but mainly the whole way it was dealt with was just awful and caused way too much stress in my life at a time where I did not need any stress, and was also on furlough, so needed compensation for the work that I had put in. 

So the main lesson from that, was definitely, the first thing you say, EVER, when you’re asking about a job or someone has asked you about a job, you say “this is my rate of pay” or “this is my set price,” some people might prefer to do a set price for a shorter project, but if it’s something long term, set your price!! The first meeting that you have, or the first point of conversation, that’s the first thing you need to do. 

GT: Yes. I also wanna point out when you set your rate, it wasn’t something that you had [come] up with yourself. 

SM: Ohhhh! Yes, so what I did, with that, when the person was like “you’ve made a mistake.” My response back was, “here is the Scottish Artists Union website.” They have set out different rates for new graduates, under 5 years experience, and 5+ years experience, so I sent that link to that website, and still didn’t get a response even though that was fully backed up, what I had put was fully backed up by the SAU, and I had actually deducted money from … I think it was like £22.35 for a new graduate artist, but obviously I wasn’t graduated at that point, so I had taken that sum down, and they still weren’t happy about that. It was just ridiculous. Anyway!!! 

GT: I was thinking we could go through the checklist that we made?

SM: Yeah, that sounds good to me! Do you have it in front of you?

GT: I do, yes! 

SM: I have mine down here. But I first of all wanna say, I think the main thing to take away from our stories, is just being transparent, and making sure there are no loopholes that people can get by, such as like, pretending to ship you things, and paying you in merch. Like, no. that’s just not a thing. Like, you wouldn’t get a sparky in and have them fix your light, and be like “oh I made some buns earlier, is that alright for your payment? Or like “oh, I have this lamp actually, you might be able to make use of that, do you want that?” No. 

GT: Like, see this is the thing that I took away from it, I was like: get paid in money, so you can BUY the merch if you wanted to!!! Get the money first, don’t fuckin work for merch! Um, I feel like the only way we can get around that is like, if you’re doing an artist trade. I feel like if you’re working for an artist, making art for art, I think a) you’re working for someone who knows what it’s like to be an artist, and b) it’s a more genuine exchange, like work for work. But like not when your’e working with a company or a business, that has the money to pay you for your work. 

SM: Or like, not ‘they have the money,’ they SHOULDN’T be asking you, if they don’t have the money, you know? People, if they have a business, they have all of these different outgoings, they have contractors, and they have general bills to pay, and people to pay, so what is the difference between getting, like yeah I was an art student, but I’m still a human with bills to pay and…. You know? What is the difference between paying me and paying for somebody else’s labour? There should be no difference. And that’s something that I, since graduating, I am an advocate for that. Everybody needs to understand that you shouldn’t be … what am I trying to say? DON’T WORK FOR FREE, that’s what I’m saying

GT: Know your worth!!!! Know your worth. 

SM: Mmmhm, that too. In terms of the checklist though, the main thing you can encapsulate all of those things in, is if you draw up a contract. So I’ve included that in the checklist, which is basically just for use whenever you are thinking of taking on a job or some kind of [creative] role. I think the contract is really, like, I’ve never done this before, I’ve not had the opportunity to do that.

GT: You’ve not had a positive experience yet!


SM: Well, yeah, I’ve not had a positive experience yet working as an artist, but it’s definitely  something that I can see so much value in, because all of the things that both you and I have described would be completely avoidable if we had a contract in place. I’ve written on the resources that it might seen a bit extra, and you might feel a bit like “oh god should I be doing this?” The answer is definitely yes, you should be doing it. Because it’s your time that you’re giving up, potential resources you’re giving up, and your energy. These are all things that are worthwhile, and worth getting written down. It can be a really simple thing, just to make sure that both parties are on the same page. If it’s helpful, I could easily draw up a template for this kind of thing, so you could just edit it to suit you. Give us a DM or comment just now if you’d want something like that, and I can definitely work on that in the next couple of days. But also included in the checklist, the first thing, is to just ask whether it’s paid or not, it’s really so easy just to say, “thank you so much, is this a paid opportunity?” Just literally ask, there’s no embarrassment or angst about asking that kind of question. And also no angst or embarrassment about receiving that question. You know, if you get that question, and feel like “oh god, that’s a bit rude why are they asking that?” Then you just shouldn’t be employing people, that’s just ridiculous. Do you want to do the next two Georgia so that I don’t keep taking and talking!!!

GT: Well, so, yeah. The first one is to ask if it’s a paid position/role/job, the second one was draw up a contract which you went over, then the third one, send over an estimated materials list/timeframe/overall cost. I think that would kinda be in the contract as well, those are the things I wish I’d done in my story. A) like, figure out what would be a reasonable timeline, and if you can’t start a project until after you’ve finished your semester or after you’ve finished other projects, just say that. Be transparent. B) Figure out how much the paint is gonna cost if you need paint, before you go and buy it all. Really just take your time, do some research, figure out how much shipping is gonna cost, and approximately how much time you might need to do the project. I feel like we usually, as artists, we like to be more process based, and be like “oh, I’m just gonna see how this takes me” and then try to figure out your costs and time afterwards, so [this way might] be working backwards a lil bit but so so important. And then the last thing on our checklist is consider if you really have time for this. Because we’re all busy people. 

SM: Honestly, that’s one of the most important things I think, and is one of the main things I wanna stress, is that if you get, or are presented with an opportunity that you think is really going to elevate your career, and get your name out there, really genuinely think about if that’s actually going to be the case. because, from my experience, that’s just not how it works. Just with day to day things that might come your way, really think about if it’s going to be worth it or not, like, could I be spending my time more wisely? Or do I have time for this? like, if you’re like me right now, furloughed, and really not doing very much apart from just hanging out, like totally! Take it on and see where it takes you, but if you’re a student or if you’re working full time, or anything at all that might make you be like “do you know what, this would be great, but I’m really not in the headspace right now”, that’s enough of a reason to say no. so definitely evaluating whether or not you a) want to, and b) can do it. And I think that highlighting the word “opportunity” is also really important here, because I… Georgia, I think I told you this last week. When I started art school, I basically set myself, not like a challenge, but I find it really difficult to be organised, so I was like right. Every single year of art school, I’m gonna do two completely different things, like extra curricular things that I can add to my cv, which means by the time I graduate, I’ll have at least eight projects or anything relating to the arts, whether it was volunteering roles, anything. I did that for first, second and third year, I put myself out there, took on way too much, and it really effected things in my life, like relationships, and my studies and my mental health, so when I got to fourth year, I was very much like “I've not seen any payoff here,” I still don’t see any payoff for anything I did, and id like to think I was always quite busy and doing lots of things, but I really don’t think that the word “opportunity” should be forced upon you so much at art school, because it might be an opportunity for the outside looking in, or for the person giving you the “opportunity,” but you need to really weigh up whether this is gonna be an opportunity for you or whether you’re gonna be like me, crying on facetime to your best friend about it. And out of pocket because of it!

GT: Yeah definitely, I feel like “opportunity,” there’s such an idea of scarcity around it, like you get given an “opportunity” and you’re like “omg this is the first thing that’s ever happened to me, like I have to take this!!! This is totally gonna be everything, and be so important!!!” But I know that sometimes there’s not a lot of opportunities for artists, especially in a pandemic, but I feel like, try and take time for yourself and really have an outlook of abundance, like, just because you can’t do this opportunity, more will come along, like that’s not your only opportunity. It’s not the only thing that’s going to launch your career into the art world. More will come. Just really know your worth, pick your [projects] wisely and, like, talk to people! Talk to people that you know are artists, if you’re unsure of whether you want to put your time into something, its just nice to have a soundboard to be like “yes you totally should!!” or “no you shouldn’t,” or like “lets draw up a contract together.” You know that Shae and I are always an ear to talk about any of these kinds of things, if you need help with anything. Not like we have the best experiences, but we can be someone who you can chat back and forth to about it. 

SM: I also really wanna highlight that, all of these things that I’ve learned, have made me a better practitioner and a better artist in general, so it’s also okay if you continue to do these things and think “okay so I’ve though about this and I’ve put my contract together.” And you still walk away feeling like shit, that is also fine, because you can only learn these things yourself. What we want our role to be here, is just to be a foreshadowing of what’s to come! Not in a negative way, but by being honest,  because there are things that you might have the opportunity to do that we haven’t, or things might go really well, and you might be like “yeah I didn’t get paid, but I did get this.” Like that is is all obviously subjective, and depends on what you think is worthy of your time. So, even though we’re saying don’t get paid in merch, that’s just our personal opinion, and I know for a fact Georgia will never be doing that again. But if that’s what you wanna do then just do that, that’s absolutely fine, but I just think there are os many pothole sand so much angst and regret, that we just wanna help you avoid that. And hopefully that’s what the checklist will help you to realise. But definitely, it’s all your call, and like Georgia said, if there is something in the works right now that you’re like ~uughhh~, just let us know and we can hopefully help you out and give you some tips. But there’s also a really good article which is basically about when it’s okay to work for free, and when it’s not, it just kinda breaks down the different types of work so definitely give that a read, just because, obviously you [might] have to do that at some point in your career, it’s just unfortunate. But we are hoping that the world can be paved in a very different way, and we don’t have to [be expected to] work for free anymore. Even students! You know, I used to think if was so unfair that it’s kinda drummed into your head that you only get paid fairly and reasonably once you’ve graduated, but that’s just not the way it should be. So hopefully that will change in the near future. 

GT: Yes, I completely agree! Is there anything else you wanted to add before we wrap up episode one of season 2???!

SM: Honestly I don’t think so, I think I chatted for long enough, and hopefully it was helpful, this is more conversational, while the resources will be more structured, so you can look back on it and be like “okay what were they talking about?” 

But yeah if you don’t have anything else to add, that is me I think!

GT: Um, the only thing I’ll add, is that we are thinking about making JAWBREAKERS a podcast. 

SM: Oh yeah! Cos we asked for some feedback, and some people thought that that would be quite good, I just feel like the way we talk, I feel like its not really podcast-y because I’m responding to your face and I’ve never done a podcast before, and I’m not particularly an avid podcast listener, so.. 

GT: I forgot you’re not a podcast listener 

SM: No, so I just don’t really know if it would work for this series.

GT: Well we’re looking into it, if that’s something people are interested in, let us know. But yeah, thats everything!! 

SM: Yep! Yay!

GT: Yay! Thank you so much everyone who tuned in today, on this lovely Saturday afternoon/evening, wherever you are tuning in from. We will see you next month, we are doing JAWBREAKERS once a month now instead of twice a month, so we will see you again in March!

SM: Thank you so much for joining everybody, and yep, if you have any questions about todays episode just give us a message!

GT: Bye!!!

SM: Bye!!!