I've never really understood the desire to "save" on lawyer costs up front. Lawyer money is the cheapest money you'll ever spend, if you use it right. Having a lawyer set up your company correctly from the start is not expensive. Where it does get expensive is when you try to get investment, or bought or some other event and they have to spend months unraveling the gigantic mess you've made by doing all the legal yourself based on some blog posts you read.
To save on costs, don’t go to a big firm, they are expensive. Ask around and find a solid boutique firm that specialises in your area. They will often do some kind of deferment if you are really small, although there’s usually a retainer.
Get it done right, the first time, and you won’t have to spend money on it again. This applies to anything legal; incorporation, contracts, employment agreements, licences, etc.
Honestly, as a collector with 16 years of collecting under my belt, I can tell you this does not happen very often. I do have a few things that I paid hundreds for that are now worth thousands, but I also have works that I paid hundreds (and sometimes thousands) for that are worth nothing (although I really treasure them).
If you happen to catch an artist at the beginning of their careers, and are willing to take a chance on them, then this might happen but more often than not it won't.
Also, as a collector you actually want artists to be successful so you want them to be growing and continuing to get more recognition and keep producing work. In order for them to do that you want them to get better and better value from their work.
The artists mentioned here might not have done so well in that auction but they certainly went on to very lucrative careers.
Well, kind of, except that's not really right. A Gallery usually represents an artist in a specific area. For example, in the US it might be that a gallery represents an artist in San Francisco, while another gallery does so in Los Angeles, another in New York, etc. Generally anywhere with a big enough market is going to have separate representation. That means that a mid career, or later, artist could have many galleries representing them. Generally they will be doing way more than one show per 18 months, generally around 3 to 4 per year in major areas, maybe even more if they have international representation.
Also, $5K to $10K per work is somewhat misleading. I depends a lot on the work, painting tends to be more expensive than photography for example and unique photographic works are generally more expensive than editioned work. A mid career photographic artist doing unique work can expect to start at $10K per work but it certainly goes up from there. A recognized artist with international representation is generally commanding much higher prices.
None of this takes into consideration other work, such as commissions, installations, advertising, books, etc. which can be very lucrative avenues of revenue.
Artists who have good representation in major areas are generally doing much better than $50K per year.
Honestly, if you're doing it in an 1800sqft studio custom built for exactly that process, it's not that hard. I spent a weekend doing it in what was essentially a 50sqft bathroom and it was pretty straight forward, once you get the hang of it.
They used to do it in tents in the middle of the desert on giant, heavy plates of glass (16in X 20 in), so this is a piece of cake in comparison.
There are photographic artists doing much more complex work, in much more difficult conditions. Check out the work of Chris McCaw and John Chiara, or the recent daguerreotype work of Binh Danh. Not criticizing anyone, just saying that the way they choose to do things is absolutely crucial to their art, and an essential part of it, not just a process that is currently cool.
Honestly, this seems a tad self-aggrandizing. I've done wet plate before, you can learn it in an afternoon, it's really not that hard. If you can't find someone to teach you there are books like The Keepers of Light that have the formulations and processes all laid out, so learning by yourself isn't that hard either. The tricky part is getting hold of some of the chemistry, but that's not as hard as it used to be either. The issue with wet plate processes is that it's kind of finicky and there's a lot of experimentation that has to happen before you get it down, but getting from 0 to your first one shouldn't take 45 days if you really want to do it.
Not hard, it just takes time, and money.
As for there only being 1000 people who practice this, well, that's just not true. I personally know at least 3 photographers in the SF Bay Area who do it, and I know of at least another 6 in the same area (just don't know them personally). It's actually become a quite popular thing to do.
Good for him building a studio and all, and for doing something he really enjoys, but some of these claims are just not right.
Hiring fast is actually really important. It sets a really good tone with candidates and forces you to have a hiring process with good decision points and processes.
At Voxy we had a 1 week turn around goal from receiving a resume to having on offer on the table. Didn't always work out like that because of candidates, and vacations and what not, but that was the goal. The day of last interviews we either said no thanks that night, or got the offer out.
To save on costs, don’t go to a big firm, they are expensive. Ask around and find a solid boutique firm that specialises in your area. They will often do some kind of deferment if you are really small, although there’s usually a retainer.
Get it done right, the first time, and you won’t have to spend money on it again. This applies to anything legal; incorporation, contracts, employment agreements, licences, etc.