Rich Sigberman Art & Illustration 90

“I'm not looking to pay someone to help me” – Craig’s List in a nutshell. That is a line taken verbatim off of one Craig's List ad.

I've never turned down so much work as I have from Craig's List. It seems to be full of people who want something for nothing, unless you consider empty promises to be "something". If I wanted to work for free, or for little money, I could have illustrated 7 children's books by now.

Why do artists permit themselves to be taken advantage of? Why would anyone expect an artist to work for nothing? Why should an artist (or anyone else) let themselves be taken for a sap?

The answer: we want to do our art SO badly, that we'll do it under almost any circumstances. We ARE saps; we're in love with creating art, to the exclusion of any business sense. Those artists who have good business sense are called "whores" by other artists and are the objects of envy. I'm trying to be one of them. Of course, one has not prostituted oneself simply because one wants to be well paid for one's services, don't be silly!

Art vs. commerce strikes again!

Hello Rich,Thank you for sending us your samples. Unfortunately we are not interested in your style of illustrating.

The above is what I need to get used to, as I just spent the first three hours of the day submitting a variety of emails and snail mails to get an artist rep for myself. The odds of this being successful are pretty small, and it would do me good to not think that while I'm in the midst of attempting (once again) to make this happen. My experiences thus far with "art reps" have been discouraging to say the least. They seem to be not only not interested in my work, but not-interested in the extreme, that is to say, the rejections come rapidly (when they respond at all) and with few words of encouragement. To my sensitive and insecure ego, dealing with the world of art reps and ad agencies, has been tough.

But, market I must, even if it puts me in a foul mood, even if I expect poor results, even if I'd "rather be drawing or painting" as some of the bumper stickers say. Why should I expect my career to go up, if I don't work at marketing? Why don't I market more consistently? And, why can't I market with a good, firm attitude of good expectations? There is no business that can exist without getting the word out about it. So, I shouldn't expct to do otherwise, just based on my art alone. In fact, I ought to consider myself pretty fortunate to have gotten as far as I have on the rather minimal amount of time and energy I put into marketing and networking.

I looked at a number of other illustrator's work this morning, while perusing the art rep's pages. I kept saying "garbage, garbage" to myself when viewing nearly every one. Harsh judgements, and not without some envy thrown in. Bitter? Moi?

So, I need to muster up the courage to not only keep at the marketing until I consistently get the type of jobs (we are talking money now) that I'm after, and do it with a good attitude. I'm not quite there yet. But then, I've only been at this 24 years, and wouldn't want too much success too soon.