Episode Transcript
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Stephanie Eche (00:02):
Welcome to first
coat, where we explore public
realm art and how it's made andwhy it matters. I'm your host
Stephanie che an artist andentrepreneur based in Brooklyn,
New York, I run to still createa white jury and produce site
specific art projects for realestate developers. I
focus on creating more equity,equitable and inclusive
projects, and I want to get moreexposure for the artists and
(00:23):
developers doing this work. Lastyear when Coronavirus started, I
dove into a project I finallydid my podcast idea and it
actually turned into both apodcast and a video series which
hopefully you've watched someepisodes or listen to the
podcast. So the first season Iinterviewed a bunch of mural
artists who I love some of themwhom I've worked with. And we
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talked about everything it takesto be a mural artist, how to
actually develop a mural,everything from creating a
design, to installation toworking with clients to pricing
your murals. So if you'reinterested in mural creation as
either a mural artist or someonewho's just interested in how
murals happen, or if you want toactually commission a mural by
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an artist, I highly suggest youlisten to the first season of
first coat, check out all theinterviews I did with artists,
it was super fun. And I'm soglad that I was able to talk to
all of the artists, we did theinterviews via zoom. So it was
like it didn't matter where theywere many of the artists were
not in New York City where I am.
So it was a great way to justspend March when I was stuck in
my apartment. And actually, I'mstill stuck in my apartment.
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Technically, I'm in my studio,which is a short walk from my
apartment. And I'm the only onewho comes in besides my husband.
So we've been using this spaceto do well. I'm using it to
record today. This next seriesis going to both dive into how I
curate and project manage sitespecific projects for businesses
and real estate developers,which is something I've been
doing for the past few yearsactually, I used to be the
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placemaking manager at VornadoCharles D. Smith and Washington
DC, I was focused on CrystalCity. And that was the first
like real job title I had doingthis work previous I was doing
things just with friends or as ahobby and I actually got a job
got paid to do placemaking for amajor developer. And that was
awesome. I did that for a bit.
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And then I decided to just goout on my own. So that's how I
started to still creative.
There's still creative connectsartists and real estate
developers or other businessowners or funders who want to
fund a site specific art projectis often murals, but not always.
And we also just help curate artfor anyone, I am an artist
myself. And so as I'm helpingother artists with their
projects, I'm learning a lotabout what kind of work I want
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to do if I want to do work inpublic space. But mostly I have
a studio practice right now.
That's the theme for season two.
And I'm really excited to getstarted. So some things that I
will be covering are how to payartists, how to find artists,
how to hire artists, just a lothow to use and I'll also do some
interviews later on. So if youhave any specific questions
about art in public space, howto do art in public space more
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equitably, please let me know,email me Stephanie at distill
creative Comm. And I'm reallyexcited to get going. So here we
go. How much should you pay anartist? I get this question a
lot. And it really depends, theshort answer is pay your artist
as much as you can. So if youhave a budget, pay them not
much, really, there's a muchlonger answer. And I think
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what's hard about pricing art,particularly for art and public
space, is that there's just alot of variety and how people
price their art in public space,and also how art is done in
public space. So obviously, alot of art in public space is
done just by the artists becausethey want to do that kind of
work. Whether that's likeguerilla art, street art,
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whatever you want to call it.
There's tons of that. So that'sconfusing, right? Because you
might think like, Oh, thisperson's doing that art for
free, why would I pay them to doit, then the there's the other
side of it, where there's a lotof foundations and a lot of
businesses who fund really largeprojects where they're, they're
using budgets of like, hundredsof 1000s of dollars millions of
(04:01):
dollars for for this project. Soit's really hard to know what
you should pay an artist whenthere's this scale of work,
right? It also applies to if youare hiring an artist for a
business need or something forsomething for your business. So
say you want to have an artistdo an illustration for for your
website, for your blog,whatever. You also should pay
the artist obviously. Butthere's a range of how much an
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artist is going to costdepending on a lot of different
things. So first thing to dowhen determining how much to pay
an artist is to number one, payyour artist, I just want to be
very clear about that. I think alot of people expect to get
artwork for free or they thinkthey're giving the artist
exposure or whatever. Even ifyou're a big brand. giving an
artist an exposure is just not agood excuse. You should always
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pay your artists something.
Number two is do your research.
I dive into this a little bitmore in my blog post. I have a
link at the description of thisvideo. But basically you want to
research other projects that aresimilar to the project you're
doing. See what other artistsare charging or getting paid for
that project, this can be reallyhard because a lot of these
prices are behind closed doors,it sucks. This is why I think we
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need to be more transparentabout how much we're paying
artists for art in publicspaces, I think it's super
important that weshare the information because if
we don't share them, we can't,we can't get more projects out
because no one knows how muchsomething's going to cost. And
then they don't do it becausethey're like, oh, that probably
cost a million dollars, or Oh,that does cost a million
dollars, because that's the onlyexample they see. So do your
research, you want to payattention to a couple of
different things. When you areresearching how much to pay
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artists, one of the things iswho's the artist, different
artists cost different amountsof money, it's just the way it
is, if it's a really famousartist, a really well known
artist, a really skilled artist,they might be more expensive
than an unknown artist, orsomeone who's just starting out.
I'm not saying that thoseartists are any less talented or
valuable. It's just the way itworked. Keep that in mind when
you're looking at other pricesfor projects, you also want to
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keep in mind location. So wherethe project is and where the
artist is coming from will befactored into the price of the
project. So if you're flying anartist in from another city,
that's going to be moreexpensive than hiring a local
artist. So just keep that inmind when looking at other
people's project prices. Youalso want to think about the
size of the work. So a largemural may be more expensive than
a small mural. But, again, asmall Mural by a more famous
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artists may be more expensivethan a large Mural by newer or
lesser known artists. So all ofthese things kind of work
together. But I'm just givingyou what you should be thinking
about when you're looking atother project prices. Another
thing to think about are theexpectations of the artist, if
you are hiring an artist and youexpect them to be in meetings
with your company, every weekfor six months, you need to pay
them for that. So just factorthat into the price and make
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sure they know upfront thatthat's what you expect them to
do, because that's a lot ofwork. And I think a lot of times
people kind of just forget aboutthat. And then they like expect
the artists fee on all thesecalls. And it's it's really
unfair to the artist, if youdon't tell them ahead of time,
and you don't pay them for thattime, when you're looking at the
prices of other projects, youalso really want to pay
attention to who paid for theproject. If it's a big
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foundation or a big company,often it's multiple big
foundations, they're probablygonna have a much bigger budget
than one small company or anentity, an individual or a kind
of more grassroots project thatmaybe has a bunch of funders,
but it's just not, they aren'tas big of organizations, and
they just don't have as muchmoney to put into that that
doesn't. Again, that doesn'tmean that this artwork is better
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than this artwork. And that'swhy it's more expensive. It's
just it's just how it works.
Public Art is a weird world. Andthose are some things that you
should think about when you'relooking at how other people are
pricing their work. So who theartist is the size of the work,
the location of the work, thetype of work, expectations of
the artist, and who's paying forthe work are all things that you
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should take into account whenyou are doing research about how
much a project similar to yoursmight cost? Once you have a
general idea of how much asimilar project cost and why
with all those factors, then youcan think about how much are you
willing to pay and what is thescope of work that you think is
reasonable for the price thatyou have. So if all the prices
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for this project are like wayout of your budget, and you only
have a little bit, that doesn'tmean you can't do the project,
it just means you might need toscale the project back or just
be upfront with the artist abouthow much you have to spend so
that they don't have theseexpectations that you have a ton
of money. And that goes intoreaching out to the artist. So
once you know how much generallyyou can pay. And ideally, once
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you have a creative brief whichI go over in another video, you
can reach out to an artist, youcan let them know what the
project is some details. And youcan give them your budget and
ask them is this something thatthey that that they could do,
you can also ask them for theirbudget first, but I suggest
being more transparent and justletting them know like, Hey, I
have about this much money, youcan give them a range. That way,
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you're not wasting their time,they're not wasting your time.
And you can get to the nextstep, which is something else I
go over in another another videoof how to hire an artist. But
basically it just kind of talksabout like getting a proposal,
obviously getting a contract atsome point. Anyway, that's a
bunch of other stuff. This isjust about how much you should
pay an artist. So once you'retalking to the artist, you'll
you'll get there you'll figureout
what what a good price is forthe project, because I'll let
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you know if that works. Andyeah, hopefully you'll get to a
good price. And everybody'shappy. And you can move on to
the next the next part ofactually hiring an artist. Some
other things to keep in mind aretime, how much time is this
going to take the artist and Idon't just mean making the work,
I mean actually dealing with youto make the work because so much
about commissioned art, evenstuff that the artist has
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already made. A lot of peoplemight want to like talk to them
or do a video call or whatever,that's fine, just like be
upfront about what you'reexpecting from them. Also
urgency. So is this a projectthat needs to happen like as
soon as possible, like in thenext month? Or is this something
that's going to take three yearsto happen? You should let them
know because maybe, maybe theycan't do it if it's in the next
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month that they could do it ifit's in three years, or on the
flip side. Maybe they are theyneed to budget their their years
production and so they want toknow ahead of time if this is
going to happen in nine monthsor 36 months. You also want to
think about expertise. I talkedabout this. A little Before but
if someone is more experienced,then they might charge more.
Again, it doesn't mean thattheir work is necessarily better
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than someone who was lessexperienced. It just, it's just
kind of how the art world works,you'll get a sense as you start
talking to artists complexity.
So if this project requires alot of figuring out, like, I
need to figure out how to dothis, I need to figure out how
to do that, whether that's youor the artist, or both. That's
going to be a more expensiveproject. So just keep that in
mind. paint on a wall is muchless complex than like a
multimedia 3d video, like,whatever. So just keep that in
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mind when you're figuring outwhat kind of project you want to
do and how much you are, you canpay for that project. As a quick
recap, how much should you payan artist, you should pay them
as much as you possibly can. Butyou should do your research,
figure out what are some similarprojects to your project, think
about all the factors I listedout to determine like, what's
similar to your project and comeup with a range, reach out to
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the artist, ask them how much itwould cost, make sure you give
them your range. And you canstart that discussion. I think
it's really important to betransparent about your budgets
with artists, because they mayhave not done exactly what
you're asking them to do. Thatdoesn't mean that they can't,
but they're also playing thepricing game. And for artists,
it's like a whole nother thing.
And there's lots of differentstrategies. If you're curious
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how to price your work as anartist, I'll put some resources
in the description below. ButDifferent people have different
strategies. So I hope this helpsyou figure out how much to pay
an artist for a project you'recommissioning, I highly suggest
you hire artists right now,always. There are lots of things
that artists can do to make yourbusiness or your new development
site so much better. I recentlyhad one of my artworks licensed
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to be in someone's newsletterand it was awesome. They paid me
they weren't clear about whatthey what they were going to use
the image for. And it worked outreally seamlessly. So it's it's
very easy to do, but you justneed to do a little bit of
research. Let me know if youhave any questions. My email is
Stephanie at distill creativeComm. How much have you paid an
artist? What have you paidartists for in the past? How did
that How did that go? I wouldlove to hear any questions you
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have about how to work withartists, how to pay artists, I
just want to get more artistspaid and paid well for their
work. Remember, pay your artistby end Be sure to check out
Season One of first coat where Iinterview a bunch of mural
artists and you can hear abouthow they price their work and
how they get commissions. Thisis particularly helpful if
you're an artist but if you'resomeone who's commissioning a
mural, it's also reallyinteresting. Thank you so much
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for listening to first coatagain. My name is Stephanie and
have a good one. All right.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of first coat. If you
like this podcast, please leavea review. Make sure to subscribe
to the first podcast whereveryou listen to podcast and follow
us on Instagram at first podcastor at distill creative
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production company