Feeling a little melancholy this evening. I should be able to make a living with my art, right? Other people do. It's sad that people don't take artists very seriously, considering how necessary we are.
What? You don't believe me?
Stand up. Right now. Take a look around you. That computer, the stuff on the desktop, the mouse, the desk, the chair you just had your butt in, the room you're in, the windows, your clothes (yes, even those threadbare socks), your coffee cup, the light fixtures, the light bulbs, the tape dispenser, the paperclips, and everything else around you (yes, EVERYTHING), started life as a drawing. Some artist, somewhere, designed it all. (Except God, I suspect he didn't start with paper first, but who can say for sure?) Consider your toilet and the poor fellow who sculpted the first one... yet where would we be without it?
When you look at it that way, at how necessary art is in our daily lives, why oh why is there a 'starving artist' stereotype? I get asked to draw things quite often, but I'm not going to do it unless I get paid. You don't ask someone to design a logo for you without paying them... you'd sooner ask a mechanic to fix your car without paying them because they're pretty good with a wrench.
Along those lines, why is it people think that, "And you'll be able to add something to your portfolio!" and "Your work for me will be advertisement for you!" are sufficient methods of payment? Go to that aforementioned mechanic and offer to show other people his work on your car, and you'll allow him to tell other people he worked on your car, as payment. Ridiculous. For your information, those two things are my rights as an artist no matter what you think. If I get paid to do art for you, I get to show that art as part of a portfolio to gain a job. You may own all the copyrights to it, but I get to put it in my portfolio. Anyone who tells you different is selling something.
Besides, if you ask me to do art for you (please do, while we're at it!), I spend time working on it. My time is just as precious to me as yours is to you. When you go to work, you want to do your job and get paid for it... you don't want to work 8 hours a day and maybe have the potential for getting paid for part of it. More, I wouldn't ask you to. So... don't ask artists to do something for you without paying them.
Along those lines, artists: don't let anyone try to scam you out of your hard work. If you're making something somebody wants, then that somebody best be paying you for your time and skill.
Also, spend some time reading up on copyright law. It's pretty simple stuff. For all of you reading who don't know this: the moment I create a piece of art, whether it's digital, traditional, or an epic mustard painting, it's copyrighted to me. If you take any of those pictures, regardless of whether or not they're registered with the library of congress, you are stealing. (Though it's not a bad idea to pay the $15 to get your stuff registered; I believe you can pay one fee and fill out one application for a stack of pictures.) If you think I've done something particularly clever and start printing up t-shirts with it and selling them without my permission, that's also stealing. If I find you did something like that with my art, I will hunt you down. And seeing as I did pay that snazzy fee to have my art copyrighted, I don't even have to have money to sue you. It's a snazzy open/shut case, that I will be making you pay for. And then I will go make money off those t-shirts. (And perhaps even stick my thumb on my nose while going "nanny nanny boo boo" while doing so.)
Also, theft of your art is not to be viewed as a compliment. Please, don't ever let the words, "Oh, well they liked it well enough to steal it, you should be flattered!" be uttered in your presence. These are the same morons that think ripping movies off the internet instead of seeing them in the theater is acceptable behavior. (You all know who you are. People worked to create those movies and they deserve to be supported so that they can make more, goshdarnit. Now if you're ripping the American made Doctor Who movie, that's more acceptable; nobody likes it anyway, and it's terrible. Not even good-terrible.)
Lastly, we are not art vending machines. You can't pop in a quarter, push a button, and have art land in your hands in a matter of moments. If you hire an artist for any project, a good one is going to ask you a lot of questions about what you want so they can get it right. You're describing in language what you want to experience with your eyes and emotions, and that takes an immense amount of translation sometimes. (It's not as if you can draw a picture of what you want; after all, you'd just do it yourself if that were the case.) A good artist is also going to communicate with you on how long your project will take.
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