Two weeks ago I headed out to western Massachusetts to visit my daughter and her husband and head out to the Paradise City art show being held in her area.  I had been to the show in Marlborough earlier and many (most?) of the exhibitors were the same but still was enjoyable to see the generally very high quality offerings found in the show.  The skill and creativity far surpasses what can be found in most local “arts and crafts” shows and did command higher prices accordingly, but as I looked at the works I didn’t think very many of them were going to be earning very much on an hourly basis.

Let’s break it down some.

First, there’s the booth itself, with the basic rental being around $850 for this show and heading north from there for add-ons like electricity.  How many woven scarves or (very fine) wooden spoons do you have to sell just to cover that cost alone?  Even if there was a $20 markup on a scarf that would be 40 that need to sell just to cover the booth rental!.

Whoops, then there’s the panels and racks or display cases.  Sure, those can be amortized over multiple shows, but there is still an allocation of expense there.

Where are they coming from?  Some of the artists were from New York, thought I overheard one from Tennessee, so toss in gas and tolls, not to mention car and (typically) a trailer into the mix.

Then there’s the time spent just at the show.  A few of the exhibitors, notably an artist creating some amazing oriental silk embroidery art, could work on their creations right there and draw in some potential customers at the same time, but for the majority that isn’t the case.  Otherwise they’re manning the booth (hopefully) selling and not creating any new items to sell.

And for all of them there’s the raw materials for their carpentry or weaving or painting or jewelry to factor in as well.

So what kind of hourly wage are they really earning?  Sure, for some they may be the second income on a household but they still need to be doing more than breaking even — Uncle Sam won’t allow tax write-offs for expenses unless you’re turning a profit at least three years out of five I think (rationalizing that anything less and you’d go out of business, so if you’re continuing then it is a hobby).  Per hour?  Minimum wage might be a stretch for a lot of them.

I did a couple of minor shows a few years ago and concluded they were a lot of work for little to no net income.  I was at the wrong shows, way too much costume jewelry to attract buyers of photography or anything much north of a twenty dollar bill, but given the price structure diving into the higher end shows would be a significant leap in booth materials and lots of varied prints, not just selling via POD (Print On Demand).  At these low-end shows tacking on any reasonable sort of “profit” onto the price of a print would have really made them a no-sale.

Example: I sold a metal print of Serenity last year through a gallery show (interestingly, didn’t make the “jury” cut but sold to a customer while waiting for me to pick up the “reject”).  Price? $110, but the gallery’s 30% cut and print costs left me with less than $10 “profit”.

Time to roll out the starving artist cliches I suppose, but even in these higher-end shows I doubt they’re raking in the cash, and for vast numbers of artists that don’t make the rarefied upper echelon’s of the art world are probably paying for their supplies at best and living on the thought that the occasional buyer is enjoying looking at their work.

That’ll have to do most days!