Intro
Creative time is time spent doing, thinking, moving in a way that brings something into the world. It’s often unstructured, open-ended time that does not have a predetermined outcome. The beauty of creative time is that even if goals are not met, or there are questions unanswered, it is never time wasted. Creative time is its own reward.
People are not given enough creative time. Between the grind of work and social reproduction tasks of cooking, cleaning, childcare, laundry, rest, self care, and more, it is difficult to set aside dedicated time for creative pursuits. Wages for Art(work) is an experimental art project in which participants are compensated for an hour of creative time. The sessions take place during the artist’s working hours and are funded by half of the artist’s hourly wage. The name of this project is inspired by the 70s feminist movement Wages for Housework, which made the political argument that housework and other unpaid labor is a form of work and should be compensated as such.
Since Covid-19, there has been movement towards compensating people for creative time, for example, the guaranteed income for artists program by Creatives Rebuild New York. As well, organizations such as W.A.G.E. and Get Artists Paid have provided resources, created industry baselines, and started conversations to ensure artists receive fair compensation. Wages for Art(work) takes a micro approach to address the issue of uncompensated creative labor. Unlike most artist grant programs, participation in the project has few strings attached; participants are only asked to share a snapshot of their creative time spent for the project’s digital archive.
Wages for Art(work) is an experiment. The goal of the project is to open up space for people to engage with creativity on their own terms. The future of the project is open as well, and will depend heavily on feedback from participants. Ultimately, this project seeks to leverage the artist’s labor power to give creative time back to people, one hour at a time.
About the Project
Wages for Art(work) is an experimental art project in which participants are compensated for creative time. The project was created by Quinlan Maggio, an artist and tech worker based in Brooklyn, NY. Wages for Art(work) is primarily virtual, with the coworking sessions scheduled online and an archive of participant’s photos living on this website. The project launched on June 16th, 2023, and will run for one year.
How to participate
Participating in Wages for Art(work) is a simple process:
1. Sign up for a session here
2. Spend your designated hour in whatever creative way you choose
3. Snap a photo, video, or other form of documentation at the end of your session and upload it to the follow-up email
4. Receive payment
Who can participate
Wages for Art(work) is open to anyone who wants to participate. Participants are generally compensated at the rate of $25/hour, half of the artist’s hourly wage. Participants from a marginalized group (self-identified) are eligible for an additional $25/hour upon completion of the session.
Click here to see the artist’s working schedule
and here to participate in the project.
Participate
Wages for Art(work) is currently running as an artist-in-residence program while updates are being made to the website.
Please subscribe to the newsletter below for project updates and future residency open calls.
Residency Program
Wages for Art(work) is currently running as an artist-in-residence program while updates are being made to the website. Prior participants in the project were chosen via lottery to participate in the first round of residencies through Spring 2025. The Residency includes 8-10 hours of coworking and provides $500 total compensation in exchange for a physical artifact of the creative time spent for the project’s new physical archive in Brooklyn, NY.
The Spring 2025 cohort includes the following artists:
Alex Schmidt
amra causevic
Allu Luk
G G Linderholm
Suniko Bazargarid
Alex Schmidt
amra causevic
Allu Luk
G G Linderholm
Suniko Bazargarid
The Archive
Participants in Wages for Art(work) can submit images, videos, and other forms of documentation of their creative time to the project’s digtial archive below.
