Four Tails Lampwork

People who work at home know that one of the biggest challenges comes from people who cannot understand that the teleworker cannot drop anything at a moment’s notice and visit a friend or relative. Because housework does have a certain degree of flexibility (though the idea that it is somehow not “real work” is wrongheaded in the extreme), the concept that anyone who does paid work at home actually has productivity quotas and fixed deadlines, and can’t be interrupted, seems impossible for many people to grasp.

I think some of it stems from the way work-at-home is popularly imagined, as consisting of “setting your own hours”, which to many seems to entail the work hours of Emerald City: “We get up at noon and start to work at one; take an hour for lunch and then at two we’re done, jolly good fun!” The perceptual problem is doubled when the work is artistic in nature. No matter how many times Stephen King publishes about his disciplined work hours, or artists write about the long hours, all people see is the latte break at two, and generalize from that to the artist’s entire day.

One problem with this perception that people who work at home, particularly those engaging in “art,” really do little or nothing is that art–rather like housework–is denigrated as a serious pursuit. Particularly if the art in question is craft in nature, it becomes something that “anyone” can do, and–again like housework–people feel that it is low-cost or even free. There is an added and fairly explicit set of gender stereotypes at play, as well. “Real artists”–often male–work in “serious studios” and can command large fees. “Crafters” are stereotypically female, working “for love,” with far less value being put on their work.

And these stereotypes carry over into the realm of pay. Over at Position: Relative there is a superb post, which takes articulate and pointed umbrage at the idea that artists, graphic designers, and (by extension) crafters should donate their work “for exposure” or just “for the joy of it” :

To those who are “seeking artists”, let me ask you; How many people do you know, personally, with the talent and skill to perform the services you need? A dozen? Five? One? …none?

More than likely, you don’t know any. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be posting on [C]raigslist to find them.

And this is not really a surprise.

In this country, there are almost twice as many neurosurgeons as there are professional illustrators. There are eleven times as many certified mechanics. There are SEVENTY times as many people in the IT field.

So, given that they are less rare, and therefore less in demand, would it make sense to ask your mechanic to work on your car for free? Would you look him in the eye, with a straight face, and tell him that his compensation would be the ability to have his work shown to others as you drive down the street?

Would you offer a neurosurgeon the “opportunity” to add your name to his resume as payment for removing that pesky tumor? (Maybe you could offer him “a few bucks” for “materials”. What a deal!)

Would you be able to seriously even CONSIDER offering your web hosting service the chance to have people see their work, by viewing your website, as their payment for hosting you?

The article is dead on target. Initially, I had some mildly snarky comments about the gendering implicit in this paragraph; neurosurgeons and mechanics do not have to be male. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that in some ways the famous, highly paid artists are often implicitly, though not at all accurately, popularly gendered as male, as are (still!) the highly-paid professions, despite a wealth of women doctors, lawyers, and other specialists. The lower-paid professions and artists are often gendered ‘female. How often does one hear men being referred to as “crafters”? In woodworking, yes (highly masculinized area, by the way), but not as much in other areas. In terms of the article’s comments on hiring a student, the one place where I would feel comfortable is in asking a student in an IT class to help on a website–IF the student was doing so as part of a class assignment. Even so, that student would get to use my website as part of his or her portfolio whether I used the site or not, and if the the student chose to withdraw permission for me to use his or her work, that would be acceptable.

Read the entire article, and if you are planning to buy beads, hire a graphic designer, ask for web services, have a chapbook made, or need any other artistic services, think about it long and hard. Crafters and artists, think about what your services and your skills are worth.

*Picture is a still from the 1939 MGM film, The Wizard of Oz.

Tags: artists, attitudes, beads, fairness, money, pay