While I love weaving, I love even more that people pay me to take my textiles home. While chatting with another vendor at another show, we talked about how the selling was the hardest part of being a professional craftsperson. And then he summed it up by observing that if you don’t sell what you make it might as well stay on the shelf as raw materials.
Since the whole point is to earn an income by making things, said things have to sell in order to pay the bills, buy food, and, oh yes, buy more raw materials.
Which is why it is disconcerting to have people offer to ‘pay’ you by offering ‘exposure’. The latest is a blog post by Revolvo. (I’m on my iPad and can’t easily link, but I am quite confident a quick search will bring you to her Blog.)
She said it much more eloquently than I could, so if you are interested, do read her blog.
It seems North American society has by and large lost an appreciation for the arts…unless someone soars to celebrity status. Nowadays they don’t even have to be particularly talented, apparently, because technology can fix less than stellar performances. Most people are so removed from how things are made that they don’t understand what goes into making textiles (or pottery, or whatever).
And so craft fairs often turn into an educational experience as people ask if the vendors have actually made everything in the booth. Then they want to know how long it takes. I try not to get vexed at this question, but use it as an opportunity to explain how weaving works. And how much time is involved.
An informed public has to be a more appreciative public.
What most people don’t understand is that making things and selling them means that you are in business. That means we have to pay attention to our budget, know how to schedule production, figure out legal requirements, design packaging or labels, hone our marketing skills. The fact that we enjoy the making of our product does not mean that we should be expected to work for nothing. Or ‘exposure’.
Having spent about 40 years learning my craft, I have achieved a pretty high level of skill. In any other field I would be making a whole lot more money and have a tidy pension plan. Instead I chose to be self employed for the satisfaction of directing my own life the way I wanted it.
Am I complaining? Perhaps a little. But would I have changed my life in order to have more security? No. That doesn’t mean that I will any longer work for ‘exposure’, though.