Artist & Patron

No matter how long I stay in art school, there is something I will never get used to, or even understand. There are constant art openings, and as a result regular art openings for the college sponsors/patrons are held. During these events, students are shoed away from the front entrance and made to keep away from all the rich people dressed up in fancy clothes. And while they walk around all high and mighty, gawking at student art and drinking lots of wine, the students themselves are greeted by locked doors. There was once a time that I actually entered in the main hall during one of these events, and got weird looks from many of the patrons.

Now, you may be thinking, "Well yeah, it's a suit and tie event." But I never understood why we weren't allowed to attend these events, being that many of the students were the artists for these pieces. What's more, you have to remember that each person pays about $30,000 a year to go to school here. Being that there's at least one day every month that we can't even get in the front door because of these events, I would call that an insult. But that's just how art is. Art is a luxury item, therefore we cater to the rich and turn away the poor. And everyone wants to take a bite out of the artist. It's difficult enough to get your work into a private art gallery, but once you do manage to get in, the gallery takes about half of the money from every piece you sell. So, in other words, if someone sells a painting for say $900, the artist will get less than $500. No wonder you hear all the time about starving artists.

Where the real money is, is from commissioned works. These are opportunities that the artist gets to build up their portfolio, make a solid pay check without involving a third party, and learn how to deal with people. The downside is the lack of freedom. Because it's a commission, you have to do what your customer wants, which may not be anything like what you want to do. But money is money, and sometimes you can't be picky. On the flip side, digital artists have it a little different. We get even less love because we can't physically tack anything up on the walls. Everything is computerized, and usually the only commissions we get are web related or requests to do family slide shows. Our real success comes from internships. So in the end, no matter the major, we all just hope that our stuff is good enough to land something. That's all you can hope for. And in the mean time, don't be afraid to make faces behind the snobby patrons' backs. It'll make you feel just a little better.

~ C.Mitchell