The classy thing
Thinking about etiquette in the art world, and as gig workers
I am going to write a quick rant on behalf of anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of someone not doing the classy thing. Today I broke my own rule - to be totally off Instagram - in order to message a gay bar here in Albuquerque that I assumed only exists on social media because they are cool and gay. I have deactivated my personal account, but still have The Side Woo Instagram floating around because I have cold feet about going off IG completely and losing all my content. (Will people forget I exist???)
I have not missed Instagram, especially during this most vulnerable and soft moment in my life. I don’t need more fomo, or to question the choices I have made from the deepest part of my soul just because someone on Instagram seems happy with their life - as they should be.
And today I was shown, within about one minute of logging on, an affirmation of my decision to stay off social media. Again, against my rule, I decided to lurk on Stories for approximately 30 seconds only to find that someone I had talked about collaborating with for a live panel talk is having that event at the exact venue we discussed, but did not include me. To be fair, I no longer live in California, but I wondered after seeing it why they hadn’t tried to include me, or at least let me know that they were planning it but were going in a different direction.
By contrast, this very thing happened with a friend with whom I had planned a two-person show at a gallery in San Francisco last fall which was canceled, put back on, canceled again, and then finally she decided to do a solo show there on her own. When she made that decision, she sent me a note that she would be proceeding on her own and that hopefully “you’re not mad.” Not only was I not mad, I was going to be in town - totally unrelated, but good timing- so it was a win/win. She handled what could have been an awkward situation with grace and we had a lot of fun celebrating after the opening.
These two ways of handling things gets down to etiquette, and what is the ‘right’ thing to do. What do you owe anyone? It is my personal opinion that if you are going to engage someone’s time for a couple of hours talking about your ideas to promote your book, art project, film, etc you might at least owe them a note if you decide to go another direction, but do the exact thing you talked about without them. It’s the classy thing.
And yet, perhaps because there are no hard and fast social contracts anymore, relying on others to take care of your time and feelings is a fool’s errand - and probably always has been. So what can we artists do about it, except for being a model of how we would like to be treated? Do we call people out and drop the mic?
A few months ago on an LA-based Signal group, a local artist went rogue and called out a former artist/employer by name. This disgruntled artist had been fired and she said not paid for all her hours. At first, because of her sense of propriety and because of the employer’s connections, she was hesitant to share a name, but eventually came out with it.
Before she had done so, I had commiserated with her because being a freelancer, you are often at the whim of people who, often subconsciously, try to get as much as they can for free. I had shared how I had once done a consultation with someone about their art business only to have them snap at me when I suggested an improvement in their workflow. They continued to entertain about an hour of my time and intellectual property, then a few days later told me they would not be hiring me for the job. I had done an in-person visit to their home and got a parking ticket on their street, so it was an extra bummer. When they told me that, they offered to pay me an hourly rate for my time, but the information I gave them meant they could proceed without my help.
Instead of blowing them up on social media or the local WhatsApp/Signal groups, I decided that I could take away a few key points. One, going forward I would have a minimum flat fee for in-person consultations after my first phone call. There’s no guarantee anyone is going to hire you ever again, and it shouldn’t be required if for some reason they don’t see value in what you do. But, if you are going to offer value to someone in the early stages, charge for it accordingly. Two, I decided to move most of my clients to a retainer, rather than getting paid hourly when they felt like it. As a bookkeeper, half the struggle is getting people to send you information in a timely way so you can finish their books each month. My thinking is much like going to the gym, if you pay for it, you are much more likely to use it.
So while that one meeting was a total bust, I am now making more regular money as a result of that hard-learned lesson.
As for the Signal chat drama - the artist eventually name-dropped her former employer, prompting sympathy as well as upset from the other members of the group who were either friends of hers or had not had that same bad experience. Ultimately it was hard to say the real reason the artist was fired, or really understand the intricacies of their working agreement. This is why it’s so hard to make judgements when you hear about these potential breaches of etiquette. It’s fun to rally around the ‘underdog’ but in the end, shaming and blaming doesn’t help either party learn from their mistakes.
So, coming full circle to the person who did me dirty - or at least that was my first take. I wonder how I could have handled things differently so I didn’t feel so butthurt when I saw the event was going on without me. I honestly don’t know, but I do know that in the past few years I have done soooo much labor for free, especially around my podcast. In LA I really did not care for myself financially, in part because I believe in a community where there is mutual aid. But there is a fine line between barter culture and skill-sharing, and being taken advantage of. Just like with etiquette we all have to find a style and boundary that works for us and our lives at the moment.
Would love anyone’s thoughts on tricks they have learned to not feel so underresourced and overworked.