I'm An Artist, But Not The Starving Kind

During my first semester as a teacher, I noticed a hunger in my students--a drive to crack the marketplace and build a portfolio, not just of teacher-assigned projects, but of real work for real clients. I also imagined I saw the threat in their eyes that my old boss saw in mine when I resigned to start my own company: "I can do this better than you... and for less." It wasn't long before I realized that what I was seeing was simply untrained enthusiasm.

Now, a couple of semesters under my belt, I've learned how to get the kids excited not just about art, but about succeeding as businesspeople. I squeeze as much business education into my courses as my required curriculum will allow. I lead my students in roundtable discussions and offer anecdotes from my own experience. I use whole lectures to give them primers on service pricing, contracting, good business practices and copyright protection. I teach them to fight the tendency that lingers in all artists to give their art away. I tell them that their art is a specialty, not a commodity, and that they deserve to get paid for it.

But what can one professor do? These kids should have to take business education as a freshman requirement to learn how to manage their artistic enterprises before their enthusiasm sweeps them into a depreciated marketplace.

It took me a long time to learn how to answer that prospective client's $35 challenge. A long time before I learned to say, "You get what you pay for," and walk away.

My students often ask me what they should charge for the work they do outside of class. I help them come up with a fair estimate, then tell them the story about Carolyn Davidson, the Portland State University student whom Nike paid $35 for its "swoosh" logo in 1971. (Years later, the company gave her an undisclosed amount of stock.) I tell them about the calls I still get, clients trying to drive down my rates with "Any student will do it for $35 and a six-pack."

I tell them not to be that student--that it hurts our industry and that it'll hurt them in the long run, when they're in my shoes.

JORDAN LIVES IN ROSWELL, GA.

© 2005