art smarts

Chapter 7. The Business of Being an Artist

They nurtured me and were my agents if people wanted me to do a reading – it would all be set up through Press Gang. It was so excellent because it basically meant that I didn’t have to do that hard stuff. It’s been kind of similar working with the BC Association for Community Living around the show I worked on with self-advocates, From the Inside Out, which was about people leaving large institutions. When that show travels, they do all the administration.
persimmon

I have an agent who solicits on my behalf for roles, and this is a very regimented system. Casting directors will get a breakdown of the roles for any given episode of a television show or for a film or a movie of the week. They’ll fax that out to all the agents, and then the agents will submit back to the casting director a list of who they feel could do those roles. When the casting director says yes or no to someone, then there will be an audition. For any given role, there are between three and five actors going out for it once it hits the audition process. Casting directors generally go by a rule that they’ll pick three people who they know could do the job and one dark horse, one who they’re not quite sure and one who kind of works in opposition to what the mainstream might be. I’ve been successful in getting in on the unique one a few times. But there’s a set way of going about getting work. I can’t just call people up and say, “Hey, I’m an actor here.”
james

We all know that we’re probably not going to get rich being artists, but making art is what we want to do, and it can be so rewarding in other ways. We just have to learn to be resourceful, as many people with disabilities learn to be through necessity, and to be prepared to make ends meet in other ways if need be.

I know that getting grants is a lottery; you can’t win if you don’t buy a ticket. It’s really hard to get grants; harder than ever. I think it’s great when we can help each other with our grant applications. I regularly help a friend of mine who has a hard time getting his grants together, and other people regularly help me. It’s rough, but it’s one of those things you just keep doing until you either get sick of it, or you get money.

I don’t support myself by being an artist. I make part of a living as an artist and sometimes I get short-term paying jobs that are related to art. But I’ve worked as a cleaner to supplement my art work for most of my life. Now I’m having back problems, so I have to really think about what I’m doing.
persimmon

I haven’t been really prolific. I’ve been doing jazz for twenty years, and I’ve only got four records out. I pay for all my own records, that’s probably another reason – I have to save up the dough to do it. Takes a long time to save up ten thousand bucks. I’ve only had one record paid for, and that was my first one. With the rest of them, basically I own the master for my own CDs and I lease them to a distributor.

I’ve noticed some things in the past ten years that are not as easy to do, or even possible to do, for that matter. One of those things is to be on the road for forty weeks out of the year just to make a living. That’d be really tough. So I make a living doing something else. I do this because I really like to do it.
joe

When I was performing folk music I applied for, and received, a grant from Bravo[the television network] to create a video involving music, movement and visual arts. I have received commissions to create audio-art from S4DAC, Canada Council and Co-op Radio. Canada Council has a grant for new music, for which I have not yet applied. Applying for grants is arduous and often disappointing, with many rejections.
sylvi

getting grants is a lottery; you can’t win if you don’t buy a ticket. it’s great when we can help each other with our grant applications

Once I started painting seriously, things moved pretty quickly for me. I didn’t get rich and famous – that’s not the point of my painting– but people were saying things like, “We’re interested in what you’re doing, why don’t you show here, we have space for you,” and it would be something like a small historic church in the old part of Quebec City, and the next year maybe it would be a guesthouse. It started like that, maybe twelve years ago. Then things got more interesting; I started to have my own shows. The first was in 1991 or ’92, and then I would have one every year and a half or so. And a lot of people came. People from my hometown, people I’d worked with, health care workers. Each time, I wanted to present something different, something better. If I had twenty-five paintings, maybe five or six would be new stuff, where I was doing something special, like more colour contrast. I expected people to comment on that. It was something they could do to help me.

At this point, I don’t make my living as an artist, and that’s for a number of reasons. I don’t have the health or energy to pursue that, I have some savings to live off, and I don’t want to make too much money and have it deducted from my pension. I don’t paint for the money. And now, as my health gets worse, I don’t want to be planning ahead; I want to save my energy to paint for my mental health now. I don’t have the health to teach like other artists do. I haven’t had a solo show in three years; actually, I’ve taken a lot of my paintings out of the galleries. It took too much effort to make sure the galleries paid me, and plus they took fifty percent. Now that I’m weaker, I need to reduce the distribution of my paintings. Galleries only care about how much you produce and whether it can sell; they don’t care how you’re doing. It’s not a nice part of the art world. I’ve been lucky to have a supportive group of people coming to my shows, buying my paintings, making connections for me. My paintings may be easier for people than more contemporary art. Maybe it’s been easier for me to get exhibits.
roger

We did a lot of work and we had a grant from the Canada Council. Grants take a lot of organizing; it’s hard and boring. I hate this side of the business. It takes such a long time; you have to apply now for money for next year.
france

I’ve also trained to do other things. I did economic development training, carpentry training, landscape training – trying to figure out what to do – but ended up carving the whole time, using other work to make money. Now I carve and I also live off my fruit trees and garden and chickens. Mostly I make money from carving, but if I didn’t have the garden, I’d have to look for a job.
koskas

Appendix A: Background info on S4DAC