The day
after ConBravo!, a friend of mine commissioned a chainmaille shirt – the catch
being that he wanted the shirt for an event that was next weekend. Because of
the time required, both for production and for the materials to arrive, this
posed an interesting challenge. Luckily, I had a few advantages in this
situation: I had enough materials on hand to start the shirt, I have Colleen
working with me to make chainmaille, and we both are making chainmaille full
time.
This got me
thinking about the difference between people who are artists as a hobby and
artists who are making a living off their art (or trying to, at least). The
challenge with making money through art is getting paid for your time. That’s
the biggest problem with every form of art – there is a lot of time involved.
It has to be a labour of love.
The result
is that many artists undercharge for their work, because not many people are
willing to pay even $200 for a painting with eighty hours of work in it. Yes, there
a few people who will, but even if that painting is sold, the artist is only
getting paid $2.50 per hour, and no one can live off of that.
So, most
artists use their art as a hobby, some of them making money on the side, while
working a full time job. This limits their time to produce art, but it also
provides them with a secure income. They can charge less for their work if they
want to, but they don’t have as much freedom when it comes to rush orders.
On the
other hand, there are full-time artists – few and far between. They (or we)
need to make a living off of what they sell, so they have to charge for the time
invested in their products. Unfortunately, this means that prices are higher,
but it also means that they have a lot more time to hone their craft, which in
turn means more speed during production. The costs get lowered a bit, but still
stay fairly high for larger projects.
Chainmaille
shirts are very large projects. I first started making chainmaille as armour.
When I look back at the first shirt I sold, I am appalled that I sold it for
$160. The materials alone cost $100, which means I was making about $1-2 per
hour. On the other hand, I was still learning my craft and I was a high school student
on summer holidays with no job.
When I started
looking into making chainmaille for a living, branching out into jewellery was
almost mandatory. It’s simply because there are more people who will spend $15
on a bracelet that cost $3 in materials and took an hour to make than who will
buy a chainmaille shirt for $600 that costs $120 in materials and took 40 hours
to make. Especially when you can get one that was made with slave labour for
$150 on EBay.
Nevertheless,
armouring is what I truly love about my art, so when opportunity knocks, I’ll
answer. Here, being a professional artist pays off. The armour was needed
within a time limit. There probably aren't any people out there with full time
jobs that could make a full chainmaille shirt in under two weeks. My wife and I
managed it in five days (well, six, but two of them were more like half days).
Technically
the shirt still needs a little more work on it that will have to wait until
after the event – unfortunately my supplier was busier than usual and the
materials for finishing it won’t arrive on time (the worst part is there’s only
a few more hours of work to put into it). However, the shirt was complete enough
and fully functional in time for the event – and if the materials had shipped
when they normally would have, it would've been complete with all the bells and
whistles as well.
I was silly
enough to hand off the shirt prior to getting a picture of it in its
neo-complete form, however here’s what it looked like with 15 hours of work in
it. It now has 42 hours and is much, much longer.
Now, I don’t
want you to take out of this that full time artists are better than part-time
artists. We’re just a bit crazier and usually a bit hungrier. All arts are
labours of love and deserve respect, attention, and purchasing.
My instinct
says I should end this blog with something along the lines of “Support artists”,
but since you’re here and reading this, I don’t really need to, do I? You’re
here because you support my chainmaille, my writing, or both – at least, I
assume you do, otherwise I've got no idea why you could possibly be here.
So, instead
I’ll finish with saying, thank you for supporting artists. Especially me ;)
Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.
If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.
