Artist $napshot: Chicago-based zine press operator and photographer

The Artist Pay Project is a series exploring how artists in the U.S. survive and thrive amid a cost of living crisis.

This Artist $napshot tells the story of a 35-year-old zine artist and photographer who makes between $1,500 and $3,000 monthly.

Survey

Art Practice: Zine press operator and photographer. I'm a multidisciplinary artist or general creative. I sometimes take on creative work that doesn’t fit within the two above titles.

Location: Chicago, IL

Age: 35

Pronouns: They/ Them

Earnings

Income:

$1,500 to $3,000 monthly

How much of your income is from your art practice?

Ranges from 0 to 50% each month

Where does the rest come from?

I make between $1,500 to $2,000 per month working part time at a wood shop. Sometimes I walk dogs through Wag, which can be $60 to $80 for a day of walks. Occasionally, I do random other day gigs when they turn up, like work craft fairs for other people or merch tables for bands.

How much did you make from recent art-related gig work?

I wanted to share my art earnings from the last 6 months, to show how the amount and where it comes from can vary greatly.

Oct '24:

• Zine printing commission: $200
• Zine printing commission: $409
• Zine printing commission: $41
• Photoshoot: $400
• Presentation: $200
• Patreon (every other month): $350

Sept '24:

• Zine fair: $270

Aug '24:

• Zine printing commission: $200
• Wedding photography 2nd shooter: $400
• Design work: $100
• Presentation: $100
• Patreon (every other month): $350

July '24:

• Design work: $185

June '24:

• Zine printing commission: $550
• Zine printing commission: $172
• Patreon (every other month): $350

May '24:

• Photoshoot: $200
• Video: $50
• Zine commission payment from February project: $225

How do you price your work?

For photography and design I charge about $25 to $30 per hour including preparation and post processing. My pricing is influenced by market rate, the rates of my peers, and my experience. For zine printing, I calculate the cost of materials and multiply it by 3 to account for the assembly labor. I offer sliding scale printing, so this number is at the top of the bracket and the bottom is just slightly above cost.

Expenses

Housing:

$885 for rent. I live with a roommate, we each pay half of $1,770. My art space is in my apartment.

Utilities: $150 to $200 per month

What are your major monthly expenses?

• Pet needs: $60
• Phone: $80
• Transportation: $20 to $100. I bike almost always, in bad weather I spend more to take public transport and occasional Lyft.
• Food: $200 to $400. Combination of groceries and eating out. The number and divide varies greatly depending on my finances (how often I can eat out for fun with friends), my mental health, and how busy I am.

Do you have any monthly expenses related to your art practice?

• Adobe: $50
• Squarespace: $28
• Online store hosting: $15
• Paper: $50
• Printer toner: $50
• Miscellaneous expenses: $100 to $200 for various expenses like film, developing, camera accessories, expensive printer maintenance, parts and non-toner consumables, tools, general supplies like tape, staples, envelopes, lots of postage stamps for Patron mail, web stuff, and paying out artists when I sell their work that I’ve published through the zine press.

Larger financial picture

Do you have any financial support from outside sources?

No

Have you received any grants to support your art?

No

Do you have health insurance?

No

Do you have any debt?

No

Do you have any savings?

$2,000 (I jokingly refer to my meager savings as my root canal money)

Did you pursue higher education?

No

Anything else you'd like to add?

I manage to scrape by and still enjoy life, but I think I would have a lot less general anxiety if I had health care and/or more savings. The lack thereof is always looming over me. On the (still dark) bright side, I may not need to worry about saving for retirement if I don’t have access to the health care that would get me there!

Q&A

Responses edited for length and clarity.

How do you feel about your financial security at this moment in time?

I do not feel financially secure. It's like I am living paycheck to paycheck. It's not like I have to go without food any day. But if one bad thing happens, one minor inconvenience happens, it throws my whole life into whack. I am very, very anxious about that all the time. It looms in the back of my head.

Has it always felt like that for you and the years that you've been a working artist?

Yes. Though the anxiety has increased more and more. I think it's because I'm older now and I'm starting to think more about my health and my future. Of course, I'm privileged to only now start to be like — okay, but what if something happens to me? I have been on the same plane more or less as a working artist, just barely scraping by. It hasn't felt as scary or anxiety-ridden as it does at this point in my life.

Why do you think that is? Is it the price of things, just that the cost of living has gone up in recent years, or is there some other reason?

That definitely has a lot to do with it, but it's hard to say. If I'm comparing myself to 15 years ago, when I was 20, things were a lot cheaper, but I also made a lot less. I make a little bit more, but the wages and inflation don't match up. 

How does being in Chicago compare to being a working artist in the other cities you've lived in?

It's interesting. It's hard to say, because I feel like it is better, but I still am not doing that [much better]. I have a little more time, because I have to work a little bit less than I did in New York, for example. I just feel like I can breathe a little more. But then I compare it to when I was living in Pittsburgh, and it was really cheap there, but really hard to find work. I will say Chicago has been the best to me so far.

In what ways?

Because while things are a little more expensive than I did anticipate, it's easier to meet people and find work. I also don't have to work as much as I would if I was in New York paying higher expenses. It just feels like I'm not stressed, and working all the time and feeling overworked. I can breathe a lot more in Chicago than I could when I was in New York and had higher expenses.

You shared in the survey that you’re currently uninsured. Can you talk about your choice or reasons for not having insurance, and how that feels for you?

I guess it is a choice, because I'm relatively healthy, where I don't need regular medication. There's things that I could do with that I forego like antidepressants, for example. It's not ruining my life, or it's not like the death of me, but it's an expense that I could do without, because it is a pretty big expense. 

Right now I'm maxing out at my expenses. I could not afford even a couple hundred dollars, which [insurance] can end up being more than that anyway. If I have a little extra money, I put that in my savings, which is not a lot. But in my head, that's obviously my emergency fund. I call it my root canal money. 

I'm just hoping that even if I can't afford insurance, the little bit extra I can put aside is my insurance fund. Of course, it's not gonna do much if I break a bone and have a $100,000 bill. It's scary, but it's also something I don't need every day, so I can't justify actually spending that kind of money right now. 

That makes sense. What are the biggest challenges you've experienced when it comes to making a living as an artist?

The first one is consistency. The consistency always has me on edge. It's like you never really know when you're going to have work or get work, so it's hard to know how to plan your budget and life and time around that. It could be you get a job from a connection you made three years ago. You can't always plan the work, so that's the biggest challenge I find. 

Another one is — back to the health insurance thing. I am constantly worried because I'm uninsured that I'm just gonna drop dead from something that I could easily have gotten checked out if I had access to that kind of care. But I don't. It causes me a lot of anxiety. 

How much money do you think you need to live comfortably here?

I have a hard time trying to think about that. Because what is comfort? I've spent so much of my life trying to be really frugal and not need a lot. I almost technically want to answer what I make now, but it's not the answer. Maybe it's the insurance, so $600 more a month? What is comfortable? Is it being able to have extra amenities? Is it being able to travel? Or is it just like bare minimum, but still living paycheck to paycheck? 

For me personally, my number is around $80,000. I feel like that would allow me to save and put money into retirement accounts, travel and not be so stressed about the bills. That's how I think about it sometimes. The MIT Living Wage Calculator is an interesting tool to think about what it means to live comfortably.

I hover around $50,000 at the high end. Even though right now I'm making half that, maybe that would still be bare minimum. So what I have now, plus insurance, plus, not having to panic so much about groceries. I’m curious to see what the calculator includes in living wage, and if it compares that to comfort. For me, true comfort is being able to not say no to an outing because you need to save.

What kind of resources would be most helpful to you as an artist? Resources from the city, or from the federal government, or from whoever. What would you like to see?

Real talk? Insurance. It’s number one. I would just feel so much more comfortable. Universal Basic Income (UBI), not even just for artists, but for everyone. If we had some of our needs guaranteed every month or every year, it would just be so much easier for everyone to be the best person that they could be. We would have more time to explore interests, educate ourselves, have conversations about theories and just learn and get excited and absorb. Just think about how much better at everything everyone would be, even for the system, if we just had a base, like a safety net.

I’m also curious, despite all the challenges and instability you face, can you talk about why you choose to continue with your career in the arts? 

It's funny because I go back and forth all the time between: I hate freelance and I need a job, versus I hate this, my soul is numb. My brain is rotting. I can't sit still. I do think this [freelancing] is better. It's more financial stresses, but the work is more interesting. The downside is, where's my money coming from? But the upside is, I like it. It's just better for my brain. Ask me again in a year, I could be flipped again and be like, I'm sick of this. I'm looking for a full time job. 

Right now, I do have a balance between a part time and freelancing. So I'm living the best of both worlds, and also getting the negatives of both worlds too. I have had some full time jobs, and they have been very mind numbing. But a lot of it, honestly, is I only went to community college. I went for five years, paid out of pocket, worked the whole fucking time I went and then I was like, I'm never doing this again. I hate it. I don’t have student loan debt, obviously, but because my education is only at that level, I do find it hard to get hired for jobs that I would be better suited for, besides your basic entry level jobs. 

In the jobs that I do, I don't necessarily need that, I just have proof of what I can do. The client and I have a good mutual understanding. That's a lot of what you need as an artist at the simplest way.

What's your ideal situation? Would it be running your publishing press full time and doing photography? If we had UBI and you had health insurance or you were paid what you needed, how would you configure your day or your life?

I still really like doing a lot of different things all the time. If I had the opportunity, or UBI, I would still do that. But I would like to be able to rent out a studio. I'm a builder too. I would love to be able to build more, but it's something that I don't often get to do because it takes so much space. I would love to have a space where I could do anything and keep this mismatched, freelance, multidisciplinary life without having to be as panicked about making ends meet. 

Just having a safety net would let me take more risks and be able to invest more in my practice, take some classes, get the space, get proper tools. In my ideal situation, I would love to be working on a team of like-minded individuals to run an all-access print, photo, framing, studio space.

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