The Economics of a Mosaic Commission

image courtesy of Pixabay

At the bottom of every post I write “Thank you, your support of my blog makes it possible for me to continue making art!” and this is the absolute truth.

Why do I say this, doesn’t the commissioning client pay me? Well yes, but not enough to actually pay for time, overhead and materials. Usually it pays for about 50% or if it’s a really well-paid project 75%. This post will give you a peak into the economics of one of my mosaic commissions and the role that Steemit now plays in my art-making.

cutting mosaic from wet clay

You may think that this isn’t a very good business model and you’re right but it’s unfortunately the reality for most creatives. Everyone I know in the ceramics world not only lives a very frugal life but also has some other way to generate this 25-75% that they can’t work into their sales price. Some subsidize their creative endeavors with teaching, some work another job, some have a spouse who has a well-paying job, some have family money, and many here in Portland have very low overhead because they bought their home when one could for $50K. This is the difference between a mortgage of $500 or less vs the $4,000. per month that creatives have to pay here these days for rents/mortgages.

There have been times when I could juggle several projects with some paying better than others to balance out the underpaying commissions but this seems to be the case less frequently than ever.

image courtesy of Pixabay

Why doesn't the market bear the real cost of a handmade item? This is a subject for another post because it's a very good question worth discussing in depth, but a few cursory answers are that here in the U.S. the middle class has been shrinking and wealth is in the hands of fewer than 20 years ago and to make matters worse, average incomes haven’t increased to meet the rate of inflation. Additionally, our society doesn’t really value creativity when it comes to paying for it. We rely heavily on the fruits of the efforts of creatives everyday, but the designers, the writers and makers behind the products, the ideas, the art, music and poetry are rarely the ones who get rich.

The good news is that I have stepped into a new paradigm as an artist because of Steemit. I now know that I can be paid for my process here on the platform and this helps compensate for the hours of work I couldn’t charge for. There is also the added benefit of wonderful friends and together we are creating this new paradigm that has the potential to shift wealth accessibility and distribution worldwide and to allow for all kinds of creative projects to happen that weren't possible previously (Hardfork Series for example).

In looking at the project that I finished yesterday, the Dogwood Mosaic, I knew that it should be about a $2,800.-$3,000. project but could only charge $1,500.00. Here is the breakdown of tasks and time each took:

15.5 hours Design (includes all research, sketching, and alterations that were requested by the client)
14.75 rolling slabs and cutting the tile from wet clay
12.5 glazing and all kiln loading and unloading
4.0 pre-setting (putting all the tiles in place and putting the face adhesive on it for the tile setter
2.5 client meetings
2.0 office (invoicing and misc communications)
1.0 gathering materials
Total: 52.25 hours

$1,500.00 divided by 52.25 hrs = $28.70
$28.70/ hour is a good rate at face value, except that my overhead (rent, firing electrical, kiln maintenance, utilities, taxes, all costs of running a business dictate that I need to earn $53/hr at minimum to break even and all profit happens above this.

In addition, I created
1, 2, 3, 4 posts which yielded author rewards of $440.00 and assuming that the rewards for this post are similar, I will earn about $560. half of which is Steem Power. This yield is approximate and depends on values and when I trade the $280 SBD->BTC->USD, but I can estimate walking away with about $2,240.00.US Dollars just from posting about this project.

I also have to add the 10 hours needed to create the posts into my total hour:
$3,740.00 divided by 62.25 hours = $60.08 per hour which meets all of my expenses, pays me and even gives me a little extra either to save or to have some fun with.
Whoohooo!!! Thank you Steemit!!

Also worthy of note is that usually my estimate for pricing a detailed mosaic is between $800/sf (earns a profit) and $400/sf (bare minimum just to pay expenses but means I give most of my time for free). But when making a piece this small-1.75 Square feet- the design time is the same as it would be for a piece 4x its size so it’s difficult to charge enough and to determine price. Plus the cutting of this mosaic involved some extra time-consuming carving and unusually detailed glazing, so more time was spent than the average square foot of mosaic.

I could have made this mosaic much simpler and less nuanced, but I am and have always been committed to honoring the life force of the piece and in this case the ultra detailed work was needed to make it come alive. Without it the imagery would have been too flat for the small 17” x 14” space. My mosaics live on for potentially a hundred or more years so they have to be worthy.

mosaic will be installed in this space

2 years ago I would have had to either say no to this project or, if I wanted the work I would need to subsidize it with my quality of life or go into debt. Thankfully, because I have the support of you Steemians, I can pay my expenses and I'm beginning to dare to imagine projects that I really want to do beyond commissions!

And one more piece of life improvement plan is to buy myself more freedom by lowering my overhead (which has tripled in 10 years) by half.. This is one of my main goals this year and it will put me in a better position to ride the vicissitudes both of work flow and of crypto values and ultimately give me more freedom and prosperity which I welcome wholeheartedly!

So I say it again and now you know why thank you thank you for supporting my blog, my life as an artist is getting better everyday because of you!

---

Ruth Frances Greenberg, ceramic artist

awesome gif by @stellabelle