Doing Things For Free

I’ve got a friend who’s an art curator - she helps hang paintings in galleries and figure out where exhibitions should go and how to engineer the displays of big complicated works so people can see them without getting crushed to death etc. It’s one of those odd super specialised skill sets that you’re unlikely to think about unless you know someone who does it, or have one of those slightly surreal moments of perspective about how much work goes into almost everything. “Someone’s in a band that plays that music they play in massage studios.”

She also does a bunch of ‘artist wrangling’, mainly unpaid. Getting artists who haven’t got their shit together showered and dressed for an exhibition opening and helping them write their speeches and stuff. Anyway, she’s always doing work for less money than she ought to get paid, because there’s not enough money sloshing around in the arts, and ‘person who helps other people look good’ is a highly undervalued (and yet much-in-demand) role.

She was in despair the other day about being negotiated down from the price she’d set for her work - noting that their offer would mean she’d barely cover her expenses - essentially that she’d be paying to do the work. She said she found it so hard to stand up for herself in such circumstances; particularly when she knows that nobody else is making much money and her pay comes out of someone else’s profits. She asked me how I manage to stick up for myself in negotiations. I thought that was an interesting question, and though I’ve spoken about it before, I think it’s worth returning to.

First of all, I’m not that great at sticking up for myself. Too much of a diplomat, by instinct - I’d rather make people happy in the moment by saying yes than cause an awkward break in play by asking for time to do the maths on costs and industry norms and to find out how much the dude who did it last week got paid.

My mental trick when I’m faced with the thought “well, I can take the hit” or “it’ll be fun, it doesn’t matter if it’s not paid” or “I don’t want to be difficult by asking for more”, is to think about the next person who comes along. The woman with three kids and a sick parent who can’t afford to do this work for free, or less. The person who doesn’t have a fallback plan, or a buffer, or a friend they can crash with in that city if the gig doesn’t cover accommodation. I need to make space for her. And I can’t make space for her if I don’t hold this ground for myself in this moment.

Some people are surprisingly willing to fuck themselves over; to devalue their work. It may be a matter of self esteem, or just cowardice about not wanting to be disliked, but the value attributed to work is a communally shared delusion.

Work is worth what people pay for it, unfortunately. (Just look at how much we pay parents for the job of minting and refining the component parts of the complex machinery that is human society). So it’s incumbent on you, the nice helpful person, to protect the next nice helpful person by not putting into the mouth of their future employer, the words, “oh, but X did it way cheaper”.

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As ever, if you like any of my work, do share it around with people you think might like it. It’s the thing that makes the most difference.

X

Salon details.

Open to all levels

Tea With Alice Salon 53

Time:

Mar 15, 2022 09:30 PM London (GMT)

Mar 16, 2022 08:30 AM Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney

I’ll send the link through for ALL LEVELS tomorrow.

Xx

A