survey

All I can do is shake my head.

I put out a survey to see if it would be possible to have the apartment, when it becomes vacant, be an exhibit space. The survey explains there is no way we can afford to do this for free.


One person, I don’t know who, and that’s a good thing, said:
“Is offering this space, your in-kind contribution? Meaning, you're relying completely on artists to cover the costs? You yourselves are not contributing any money to the costs?”

Of course this person has no idea that we work hard to pay the mortgage on this very modest 3 unit complex (one unit we live in) bought during the height of the housing boom. These days we work triple hard as the value of the property has decreased, the economic down turn has drastically effected our income (self employment means we won’t get fired, but it also means no unemployment), and the price for goods and services keeps going up.

The prices we threw out would only help pay costs associated with this one unit, so I will assume they have no idea. I guess paying the balance of the “rent”, electric, water, gas, taxes, building maintenance, and supplying paint does not count.

Then they went on to say:
“Trying to make something a go off the backs of artists is not the way to approach this. Provide the service first, earn the trust, then you can start thinking about membership. Other than providing a mailing list, what else are you providing? Why not organize one night exhibits? Split costs or a percentage on the sales... We can't continue to ask artists to pay for our fantasies...”

Maybe they feel they’ve been screwed as an artist. Or maybe they feel being artist entitles them to have their work shown. Or maybe they think we’re rich!

The survey was sent out to see if an idea could work. The place isn’t even zoned for commercial and as far as a membership or running a gallery goes, we are not interested. It was just an idea for a space.

We are neither independently wealthy, have wealthy family members, have a 401K, have health insurance, or have the winning lottery ticket. Maybe the day will come when we can offer this space to artists at no cost to them. Maybe then this person will not judge us so harshly.

Of course they are correct in the assumption that we are trying to make something off the backs of artists, because every day I do make something off the back of an artist and that artist is me.