Why many artists are still poor 為什麼藝術家還是窮的

Well, because I am the only artist in residence, I was asked by an office lady to help her with some simple drawings for her friend's wedding. I agreed without hesitation, because it is an artist's joy that someone requests an artwork from you. So I spent over an hour and whipped out some drawings over the night despite my busy schedule.

I thought that this job would be out of goodwill because I'd received some help from the office, e.g. to fix crappy things in the dorm. To my surprise, she seemed extremely satisfied and offered me an "orei" (gift) in return on Monday. I didn't expect it, but I was sure happy. But unfortunately, the gift never came. Maybe she didn't like them after all? I don't know. But this reminded me that this is exactly why many artists are still poor, because we draw for free and didn't know how to market or negotiate a deal for ourselves.

This also brings about the same old problem of many Singapore companies that want free artwork for their promotion materials, bargaining with artists that their names will be credited with the artwork, hence helping us to promote ourselves. Well, that's nice, but what do they expect the artists to eat for a living? only AIR!? Even HDB's air (government housing with 99year lease) commands a lot of money. In short, it's time to stop doing artwork for free, even if you must accept, make sure the other party at least treat you with some chocolates!

因為我是唯一在府畫家，所以事務所的一名OL就請我幫她的朋友的婚禮畫幾張圖。因為畫家的才藝被欣賞是一件蠻開心的事，所以我毫無猶豫就答應了。百忙之中抽了超過一小時來畫她的畫。

由於事務所常常幫忙修爛宿舍，所以我覺得出自好意，免費幫忙畫就好了。但是意外地，她似乎很滿意作品，並答應禮拜一會回禮。沒想到會有報酬的我，心中暗爽了一下。不過很可惜的是，她似乎忘了這回事，回禮根本就沒下文。可能她其實不喜歡我的畫呢？這理由不明。所以為什麼很多畫家還是很窮的呢？是因為我們不會促銷自己或替自己爭取合理的合同。

這也讓我想起了很多新加坡公司，為了可以在他們的促銷材料上使用免費的圖案，就和畫家們理論說因為促銷廣告上會印上畫家的名字，所以這也是在替我們做促銷。喔～好好喔～。但是他們覺得畫家是吃什麼過活的啊？難道只吃空氣就行了嗎!？就連我們政府房屋的空氣（99年地契）也是很貴的！所以讓我們停止替別人免費畫畫吧！至少接受之前也要對方請你吃巧克力才接受！