What is 'a respectable living'? Enough to comfortably pay the bills, own your own home, feed your family, go on holiday once a year...? According to 'the Salary Guide' (Trade Me) Median incomes in NZ in 2010 range from $35 - $75K. So aiming for $50K a year as an artist seems reasonable...
When I left art school and began to sell works I had a lot of support from friends and family who wanted to buy my paintings (You guys rock x)... Most could afford to pay around $100 for a small artwork. To bring in $50K I would have to create 500 small works every year (1.4 each day) and sell every one of them! My larger works sold for up to $3,000... but they took several months to paint. I would need to create and sell 17 per year... giving me just 3 weeks on each work. In reality, the best works from start to finish, may take 3 months or more to create so the prices would need to be in the $12 - 15K range in order to make a living.
The big problem with the calculations is that your sale price is not your income... There are material costs (paint is expensive!), studio and gallery hire, running costs, marketing, etc, and so on...
Yet there are some great artists in Wellington who are creating large works and pricing them between $3,000 and $12,000 and making their respectable living. It's POSSIBLE!
I recently went to an exhibition of beautiful works where the artist offered it all. Small works for $300-400, huge paintings for $5,000-$8,000 and even rough sketches for $20-100. This is SMART pricing. Everybody can take a piece of you home (I mean your art) for the price they can afford!
(So that is this artist's modest dream this year... to paint, draw and create my way towards that respectable living. Ooh Aah... respectable living... mmmmm... respectable living, etc.)
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