Flexible jobs for working artists
Making a living as an artist is hard. Making a living as an artist is even harder if you have yet to make your break, or develop a consistent base of clients for work or sales. Making a living as an artist means that you do not necessarily rely on a steady paycheck to reward you for your creative work. Sure you may make a living as a graphic designer, or through another creative profession, but making a living as an artist usually entails selling (or otherwise monetizing) your original works, not commissioned by a boss or corporate entity. If you want to make a living solely by selling your art, or through your wholly own creative expression, you may need to find another revenue source before you can fully make a living based off of your art.
Jobs like barista, bartender, server, retail, etcetera have traditionally been thought of as good jobs for working artists. These are jobs that can be flexible, provide reliable pay, and are within trades that allows for some job portability. In the days before the internet and the gig economy, these jobs could be thought of as “day jobs,” allowing for an artist to explore their individual creativity pursuits off the clock.
Nowadays, there are ample opportunities for working artists outside of these traditional jobs. While working a few shifts at the local coffee shop while you record an album or write a book at night is still a possibility, these jobs usually demand a regular work schedule. A new crop of work is now mainstream enough to support working artists, while also providing the flexibility that some creative types may find to be less limiting.
It is now possible to pick up work at the press of a button, instead of potentially committing to a rigid set of hours. If you’re a working artist or creative that has random hours and would like the ability to stop working when inspiration strikes, you can now work for Uber when you need cash, then spend the rest of your time on what you love. Amazon, Doordash, Postmates, Instacart, Taskrabbit, Shipt, Upwork, Fiverr, Wag, YourMechanic, HelloTech, 99 Designs, Angi, Soothe, Thumbtack, and more are all companies that offer start-stop gig work to workers in all different industries and categories of work.
In a city like Chicago, “the estimated total pay for a Driver at Uber is $38 per hour. This number represents the median, which is the midpoint of the ranges from our proprietary Total Pay Estimate model and based on salaries collected from our users. The estimated base pay is $31 per hour. The estimated additional pay is $8 per hour. Additional pay could include bonus, stock, commission, profit sharing or tips. The ‘Most Likely Range’ represents values that exist within the 25th and 75th percentile of all pay data available for this role,” as reported by Glassdoor.
“On Upwork, the rates for top content writers can range from as low as $15 dollars an hour to as high as $80, though most fall in the $30-50 range,” the company states on its about page.
As for the dogwalking and petsitting platform Wag, “earnings vary based on factors like the services you offer, rates you set and length of time you provide care. The average pay for a 30-minute walk is $12 plus tip, according to Wag. The base pay for pet sitting or boarding is $26 per night. You can get paid extra if an owner has more than one dog or requests recurring walks, and you’ll receive 100% of any tips you earn,” explains Nerdwallet.
Amazon’s warehouse jobs can now be thought of as gig work thanks to a new offering from the online megaretailer. Now offering what they call Anytime Shifts, as a Flex worker you can, “create your own schedule. Use an app to pick shifts up to 15 days in advance, and as soon as 15 minutes before a shift starts, giving you total control of when you work – with no set schedule.” These jobs pay a different rate across the United States, but on average, “The average hourly pay for a Amazon Warehouse job in the US is $16.50 and it ranges from $12.02 to $21.15,” according to ZipRecruiter.
If you’re making your way through your first creative masterpiece or have yet to establish yourself as a self-sustainable working artist, it can easy to get down on yourself. Without the validation of getting paid for your creative works, you can easily think less of yourself, or think that what you’e doing isn’t worth it. This is completely understandable, as the art world is hard to navigate and even harder to understand. Not everyone starts at the same starting point. What matters is creating a lifestyle that with help you actualize your creative goals. You can still get that barista or server job, but if you find the hours to be too constricting or the work to be too stressful, there are now new options to try. It is now possible to pick up work as needed, and build your own schedule. Why not give yourself the bandwidth to make just as much money as you need with a gig platform, and dedicate the rest of your time to what you love?
