Artists and Creators (Who Expect to be Paid) Have Exactly ONE Job To Do

No, art is not work. Not unless you create value for your customer and they’re willing to pay.

It’s a daily occurrence that I see artists and creators (often my friends) complain about potential clients not valuing their work.

They say things like, “Art is work.” And justify their made up rates by saying how long it takes for them to create the work.

If you’re a creator who is creating art for the sake of making money from customers or clients who are paying you to solve their problems, it’s irrelevant how long it takes you to create the work, how long you’ve studied and practiced to get to this point, and how much money you think your time and skills are worth.

Now some people are offended by this (I know because I get the DMs after posting stuff like this everyday).

You’re saying, “I (and my work) should be valued based on the merit of my work, not how much clients and customers are paying.”

Yes, you have value as a human, same as every single person does despite what work they do or don’t create.

But if you decide that you’re a freelance artist or entrepreneur, or anyone who creates something and asks other people to pay for it, the market and your customers decide your value, NOT you.

You can put a price tag on paint splatters that you spend 3 months “perfecting” but if no one likes it, it’s worthless.

Yes it could be PRICELESS and meaningful to YOU, but you cannot demand compensation and complain that you can’t make a living if no one wants to buy your work.

The issue is that many artists and creators think the value is in the effort they put into creating something when the ONLY value (to other people who are paying) is that they want or need it and are willing to pay you for it.

So if you’re a creator that needs to create for self-expression or as therapy to be happy, that’s great, and there’s tremendous value in that.

But that value is for yourself only.

When we decide to create work for our audience and decide that we’re going to rely on that income to live, we must also make the decision to put the things we find valuable to the side so that we can create something that gets our audience lining up to buy more and telling all their friends they should do the same.

Art for the sake of making yourself happy is not work.