On Behalf of All of the Artists Who Have Been Ripped Off or Had to Fight to Get Paid!

Well Boys and Girls, who knew I would be back again so soon? I certainly didn't think so, but a dear friend's distress has caused me to have the motivation to storm and thunder about something that probably every .working artist has had to deal with, that being in the uncomfortable position of having to fight to be paid. There are precious few of us that are lucky enough to make a living from being an artist. Even though we think of ourselves as "artists", we often have to delegate it to our second job, because we still have to pay bills. We are different. It takes us time to produce a piece, and every piece has a piece of us. I wish I could be a surgeon and whip out a couple of gallbladders, an appendix here and there, pull out a couple of babies, or lift a few faces each week and have more than enough for both gas money and a beach house, but alas, I got the art gene. There is no even playing field, but here is some information for everyone: I have a mortgage, I have an electric bill, I eat and so does my family, I have the urge to wear clothes--some even brand new, I want a vacation, health care, and a pension! I want to impulse buy, get my hair done just for fun, buy surprise gifts for my husband, and go to restaurants even when it is no one's birthday! I went to college for NINE years, yes NINE!!!! I want a vacation home! Why do I have to be dead to be worth enough to have these things!!!! Our work matters as much as everyone else's, and when you commission something from one of us, it is not only a service, it is a verbal contract. We are not frivolous. Is your plumber a joke? If you don't have the money to pay us, don't order something. A deposit is not the whole price and we won't "forget" that it is only half paid for. We are just like other services that repair, we just repair your soul. If God had given me a choice, I might still choose to be an Artist because let's face it, we have a lot of fun. But there has to be some kind of payback for not being taken seriously a lot of the time. I just might punch the next person who asks me if I am an artist because I couldn't do anything else, or the person who is standing in front of me saying that they don't understand why they should buy one of my pieces at a fair price when they can go to Walmart and buy a big "picture' for only twenty dollars. You want to know why a lot of artists are kind of crazy? Look in the mirror. If we lived in France we would be revered, here we are just trying to survive. The conclusion is that there has to be some re-conditioning, you might consider art a luxury, but artist do not live a luxurious life. Pay us, damn it!