Gigs Without Pay... An Excellent Article and Thoughts...

Nov 25, 2014
2 min read

This morning I came across an excellent, in-depth article. It was titled "Why Gigs Without Pay Will Always Exist" by Glittergirl. If you plan on becoming a performance artist, the value of your art will be one of the big hurdles you will have to understand and decide upon.

The discussion of money seems to be a sore spot for quite a few performance artists. This is likely due to the fact where asking to work for free is be unheard of in most professions (like any regular day job). In the business of entepreneuership and especially art, the area is gray and there are divisions between the perceived value of art. For instance, exposure can be a good thing but is it good enough to offer your art for free occasionally? And when is it a good choice as opposed to being taken advantage of? What about a person that capitalizes on their exposure, could they get more value from it? I've seen painters pay to have their art featured, yet it comes back with greater returns when they make a sale. At the same time, if that artist paid and made no sales, then they essentially paid to have others experience their hard work. These are all questions that do not have black and white answers, so it's something you will have to ask yourself. In my opinion, we can look at the value of others but shouldn't stay too long in that comparison. Nor do I feel we should stay in the comfort zone of what others are doing. If we create new markets, we can expand the many ways our profession can be used to support a living but with new markets comes a new establishment of value. In the end, I believe it all comes down to how we establish the value of what we do. My value doesn't come from my friend, who might do the same thing as me. I believe my value comes from what others perceive and want from me specificially with my art as simply a base foundation to start on.

If you've gotten this far, be sure to read Glittergirls article below...