CON-signment

A stranger walks up to you and says: 'I think I like you." You hand over a cheque for R20,000.
They say: "I'll pay you back," and walk off with your cheque.
Crazy?
Absolutely, but in principle thats what we do every time a gallery asks us to consign work. They take no risk (if our work proves unpopular there's always a storeroom.) And in handing over what is essentially merchandise we could say that we are financing their business. Thats step one. Step two is when work sells and we don't get paid, so our R20,000 investment hangs around gathering no interest and no return on our investment while the gallery is using our work to finance their business. That is basically what we as artists are doing. An example: a gallery I've had dealings with over the years have always claimed that they only work on consignment. Another artist comes along and says: "no ways, you want my work, you buy it from me." They roll over and the gallery coughs up. Perhaps their is a case for unknown artists consigning work, but surely more established artists should atuomatically work on a buy the painting upfront basis. What are your thoughts?

Business or pleasure?

Was interviewed on the radio yesterday and the subject of art/business arose. Its really weird but seems there is the perception that artists should be impoverished and that there is somehow a stigma with actually being paid for your work. In the corporate world people who are successful are highly rated, but somehow the minute you put art and business in the same sentence the perception seems to be that this is not in keeping with the archetype of an artist. As the presenter carried on pushing the point, it occured to me if she would have been doing the same were she interviewing an architecht, plumber or a interior designer. ie questioning the tainting of art, with the word 'sell.' As if to sell made one less of a 'true' artist? In the days of patrons this could have applied but a bunch of starving artists means a bunch of people focused on the need to exist rather than the opportunity to create. What's your view?