Crafter or Artist?

There's a at least a little bit of each in all of us. We are all crafty artists.

I call myself an "artist" yet, when my husband's niece called me and asked for a set of Christmas stockings for her family, I took it on. No, they won't be anything that I will be asking to submit to galleries for jurying. They will be nice, cute Christmas stockings and hopefully seen as heirlooms nevertheless.

The debate of craft versus art is aesthetic only up to a point. The true determination lies more in economics than anything else - economics of both the creator and the buyer.

Getting Crafty..

One can make a killing by showing in craft shows. But, if not taking into careful consideration the craft show market, it could also be a killer. Budget and all. The most important consideration is: Who is your target market?

Craft show buyers are looking for unique and cheap. This is not to say that they aren't discriminating buyers but they are usually looking to spend less than $50 for the entire show and hoping to walk away with at least a few items for that. 

I have a friend that made the most lovely Christmas advent calendar a few years back. It was more in the "adorable" category than "gorgeous," if you know what I mean. Her work was clean, precise and clearly took many hours to produce. She said it took about 40 hours total to make and cost about $35 in materials to produce. She did a poll on Facebook to try to determine the price for sale at one of the upcoming local crafts fairs. While a few said they'd price it as high as $60, most responded at about $35. Now, if you've ever presented at a crafts fair, you know that there is almost always a fee has to be paid to have a space to exhibit one's wears in. That fee can vary greatly but is anywhere between $10 - $75 on average. That is just to have a spot to sell in the fair. So let's assume my friend found a fair for a $10 entry fee and she already has everything she might need to display her work nicely - tables, drapes, means of hanging work, etc., as these things are nearly never provided with the entry fee. Hard costs of materials and entry fee have run her $45. If she sells it for $35 than she has subsidized the buyer to have her advent calendar by $10 in hard costs. Minimum wage in California was $8/hr at the time my friend was wanting to sell her advent. Forty hours X $8 = $320, none of which she was projected to make. So in the case of this advent calendar with a sales price of $35, the buyer would have gotten not only the calendar but also a bonus savings of $330. All a loss to my friend. Obviously she learned from this experience and just kept the adorable advent calendar but it's a lesson that too many crafters end up learning the hard way and loosing money.

Boot Toppers, lace detail. KC Johnston Originals

The boot toppers shown above are ones I made for myself. I used scrap yarn and they only took about two hours to make. If I made a variety of these in different colors from scraps (and as a fiber artist, I always have tons), I could easily sell them for $18 each and sell quite a few. Even if I had to buy one skein of Lion Brand sock yarn at $8, I could make at least eight pairs of boot toppers with the one skein. Artisan soaps and specialty hand towels are items I've seen sell well in these kinds of settings too. Who wouldn't like to be able to grab an affordable handful of something for those office and extended family gift exchanges, birthday and housewarmings?

Artistic pursuit..

Developing ones craft to the level of "art" and finding those elusive art buyers are most certainly a doggedly artistic pursuit. I should know. Although I make lotion bars that I can easily sell for $6 each, the bulk of my time, passion and materials go into developing something that I hope others would consider "art" and be willing to pay for it. My work can have anywhere from $35 - $110 worth of materials in them and some, as many as 80 hours of work invested. That is a HUGE investment on the part of me and by extension, my family. And that doesn't include an equally time consuming part of art.., the marketing of it.

 

Temple in Wool: knitted & needle felting, hand-painted dye. KC Johnston Originals

Finding art buyers often means selling one's work in an area where an artist cannot afford to live, online or better - both. Neither market is a simple one.

Gallery venues usually require both non-refundable submission fees and being selected by a group of art judges (being "juried in"). High end shops in monied tourist areas have to consider how a type of art will fit in with the work already presented. Will it sell? How will it look with the other work already in the shop? Is it too much like the other work already in the shop? I've had decent success in artist cooperative galleries but things to bear in mind are that most require being juried in, an initial membership fee, monthly fees, work-in-shop requirements and the area where your work might sell may not be an area you cannot afford to work/live in. The same goes many art shows and festivals.

The online arena isn't that rosy for fiber artists either or for that matter, any 3D artists. There are whole suite of popular online venues for painters and photographic artists such as FineArtAmerica.com and many others. Etsy.com is certainly a popular online craft/art marketplace but since they've changed their policy to allow both vintage secondhand and factory mass-produced items, Chinese designers and antiguers have usurped the search engine status. It's just plain hard to get found. The Textile and Fiber Art List (TAFA.com) has created an Etsy shop called Artizan which may help. One has to be accepted through a juried process and be a dues-paying member of both TAFA and Artisan in order to be a part of this online artist co-op but collective numbers should, at least in theory, help improve Etsy rankings. There are some other budding sites such as AFTCRA.com which are providing the opportunity to get in on the ground floor but, of course, whether these newer sites can pull marketshare from Etsy still remains to be seen.

But before you all stamp the lunatic label on my forehead choosing the artist route, let me remind you that when I do sell a piece, it's a big payday. I only have to sell one or two pieces per year to make as much as a crafter would selling at a year long string of successful craft fairs. Ultimately, if we are working hard and smart, artists and crafter have roughly the same earning potential.

If we're making something with our hands, we are all a delightful, complicated mix of crafty artist. We all have a passion for creating something. We all enjoy communicating a visual representation of an emotion. We are all striving to build successful businesses. We simply have different target markets.