Exploitation or opportunity? Sacramento-area muralists say Wide Open Walls underpaid them
The Sacramento Bee has spoken to, or heard from, 13 artists who have said they were mistreated. The nonprofit’s founder disputed allegations of exploitation. Sacramento-area muralists claim that Wide Open Walls, a nonprofit that employs artists to create murals across Sacramento, underpaid them. Artist Jaya King, who painted a 32-by-80-foot mural titled "Guild Goddess," was paid $3,000 for her first mural and now charges $40,000. King believes this rate was unfair as her starting rate should have been $10 per square foot. David Sobon, the CEO and founder of the mural festival, disputes these claims, stating that King and two other artists were paid the same stipend, which was funded by a $15,000 sponsorship from St. Hope and the Oak Park Business District. Artists also criticized the organization for not using Asian artists in its Lunar New Year mural.
Publicados : 4 semanas atrás por Emma Hall no
Sacramento artist Jaya King was excited to have her first mural displayed for the first time.
This was made possible in 2018 when she joined Wide Open Walls, a nonprofit that employs artists to create murals across Sacramento. King painted a 32-by-80-foot mural titled “Guild Goddess.” The piece adorns the Guild Theater in Oak Park and represents strength and female empowerment, King said.
She was paid $3,000. For the type and scale of the artwork, her going rate at the time should have been $20,000 — her starting rate should have been $10 per square foot, she said. Now, she would charge $40,000.
“Back then I didn’t have any murals under my belt,” King said. “So I said, ‘yes, I’ll go ahead.’”
In hindsight, she feels that the rate was unfair.
“There’s an exploitation specifically with newer, local artists that are looking to get their foot in the door,” she said.
David Sobon, the CEO and founder of Wide Open Walls, said the mural festival does not “have a specific breakdown” for King’s mural. He said that King and two other artists were paid the same stipend, which was funded by a $15,000 sponsorship from St. Hope and the Oak Park Business District. He said that the stipend did not cover the total project’s costs when you add in paint and equipment. They made up the money through “general fundraising.”
King’s story of unfair payment echoes complaints made by several artists who have participated in the mural festival.
The Sacramento Bee has spoken to, or heard from, 13 artists who have said they were mistreated. These types of allegations against Wide Open Walls surfaced publicly at the city of Sacramento’s Arts, Culture and Creative Economy Commission meeting in February.
Artists also criticized Wide Open Walls for having no Asian artists involved in the creation of its Lunar New Year mural. Artists said the Lunar New Year controversy and its cultural appropriation is not an isolated incident and that Wide Open Walls is a problematic organization altogether.
Sobon disputed allegations of exploitation and unfair treatment, saying the organization has “dedicated over seven years to actively engaging with Sacramento’s muralist community.” He said the notion that Wide Open Walls’ takes advantage of its artists is inconsistent with the feedback the organization has received.
Sobon said the “vast majority” of artists who have worked with Wide Open Walls have expressed “appreciation for how they were treated and the opportunities provided.” These “messages of gratitude” have described an “inclusive and collaborative atmosphere,” he said.
Sobon said he receives this feedback during events, in personal conversations and through inbox messages.
“We are open to dialogue and always strive to improve, but we acknowledge that perceptions vary and respect that not everyone may share the same view,” Sobon said.
The organization was born out of an event called the Sacramento Mural Festival that took place in 2016. And a year later the project became Wide Open Walls.
The “visual impact” of the first year’s festival spurred Visit Sacramento to get involved and commit money to the event, the visitors’ bureau President and CEO Mike Testa told The Sacramento Bee in 2017.
“Wide Open Walls really shows the vibrancy of the arts community here,” Testa said. “And I think just as important for us, it helps create a sense of place here in Sacramento.”
The organization in 2022 established another partnership, this time with Sacramento City Unified School District to paint murals at local schools, according to Wide Open Walls.
“Bringing beautiful art to campus walls will enhance the educational experience, improve mental health, giving everyone something of which to be proud,” the statement on the nonprofit’s website reads.
In the past seven years, Wide Open Walls has coordinated hundreds of murals. Walk a few blocks around Sacramento and you will see them everywhere.
What is the going rate for murals festivals?
Mural festivals notoriously underpay artists, said Liv Losee-Unger, a muralist who has participated in four festivals across the state. She worked with Wide Open Walls in 2021 when she had “no metric for what was acceptable pay.”
Artists eager to get their foot in the door sometimes end up working for far less than they are worth, Losee-Unger said..
“A lot of artists, especially upcoming artists or young artists, they need opportunities. They’re hungry,” said Fei Fei Lin, who worked with Wide Open Walls early in her career.
Not all mural festivals take advantage of artists, Losee-Unger said. She praised the Palo Alto Mural Festival as well as the Eureka Street Art Festival for equitable pay and treating her well.
Since Wide Open Walls was established, it has driven down the market price for murals in the city, said Andru Defeye, Sacramento’s poet laureate. Defeye said business owners would pay more money for murals, but Wide Open Wall’s rates established a precedent that businesses could pay less.
“It’s definitely poisoned an ecosystem for artists in the city,” Defeye said.
During Wide Open Walls’ May mural festivals, all artists receive the same stipend, Sobon said. For example, he said the artist who painted the 15-story Johnny Cash mural in downtown Sacramento received the same payment as a “local artist painting a single-story business wall mural.”
Sobon did not provide the amount the organization paid artists.
Jolene Rose Russell moved to Sacramento in 2018. As a beginning artist, she unsuccessfully applied to Wide Open Walls.
In 2021, she was accepted to the festival to paint a mural inside a Natomas hotel. A year later, she received another opportunity to paint an outside mural for Marketplace at Birdcage, a mall in Citrus Heights. Even after getting in, Russell said she was treated as a low priority.
She said that someone with knowledge of the project later told her that Marketplace at Birdcage paid $20,000 to Wide Open Walls for the project. She received $3,500 for her mural. Russell said she spent 92 hours working on site in the span of three weeks, which does not includes the 12 hours she needed to design the piece.
If she commissioned the mural independently, Russell said she would have charged at least $20 per square foot. For that piece, which was 825 square feet, she would have been compensated $16,500 if she did the project solo.
Sobon said Wide Open Walls was paid $25,000 for three murals thatcomprised the project at Birdcage. The three artists, one of which was Russell, received $3,500 each. The remaining $14,500 went to supplies, preparing the facade, photography and video.
In total, Sobon said Wide Open Walls spent $24,626 on this project, which he said did not include other fees, such as festival expenses. Equipment and paint alone, Sobon said, cost Wide Open Walls $7,058 and $5,508 respectively. Preparing the walls cost $750, and $800 was spent on photography and video (which was contracted out to ASlyFilm, an independent film production company).
“To suggest that Wide Open Walls made a large profit from this project is 100% factually inaccurate,” Sobon said.
Russell said she was willing to accept the lower rate she was paid for the Birdcage project in exchange for the exposure and recognition it gave her work.
Like King and Russell, Uli Smith was trying to break into the local art scene when she began working with Wide Open Walls in 2022.
Smith first designed murals on the facade of three schools within the Sacramento City Unified School District. She said she missed out on thousands of dollars by taking a pay cut to benefit the school and “experiment with some designs.”
“If you know anything about murals, that’s barely enough to cover paint,” Smith said. “It’s definitely not fair.”
For her first mural, Smith said she had to pay for her supplies up front, which cost $137 for paint and a brush. She was given the $500 stipend after the mural was complete.
King, who has heard of similar experiences with the Sacramento City Unified School District collaboration, said artists shouldn’t have to go through “financial trauma” in order to pursue already low paying projects.
“It was like a punch in the gut,” King said. “If you’re only being paid like $500 and then you have to use that to go buy materials, it’s just nonsensical.”
Smith said her professional rate is $30-$50 per square foot, which would have commanded about $4,000 for a mural the size that she painted for the school project.
Beginner artists for this project were commissioned $250 per mural, but after hearing that rate, Smith pushed back. She was able to get the price up to $500. In total, she was paid $1,500 for all three murals.
The pay, Smith said, was determined by the status of the artist rather than the size of the mural. Newcomers were compensated the least, while famous artists were paid significantly more.
This specific collaboration with the school district had a “different pay structure,” Sobon said. He said the stipend given to muralists was based on size and artist experience. This stipend also “covers artist supplies, insurance, and equipment,” Sobon said.
“It’s an opportunity for dozens of artists of all different skill levels to paint at underserved elementary schools in the Sacramento region. It is proven to be a great opportunity for a local artist to paint their very first mural,” Sobon said.
Should city funding be tied to equity?
The public criticism of Wide Open Walls has continued since the Lunar New Year controversy.
The city’s arts commissioners, who are appointed by City Council, on March 11 reviewed the allegations voiced publicly at their February meeting. During public comment, artist Franceska Gámez asked the board to hold Wide Open Walls accountable by including pay guidelines in the city’s cultural equity statement.
“The issue is WOW’s lack of transparency,” said Gámez, who worked with Wide Open Walls in 2017. “Their manipulation of the mural festival model...ultimately leads to pay underpaying and exploitation. Adopting a pay equity statement would model what it looks like to truly support the livelihood of artists.”
Commissioner Cruz Naranjo said the board will be “undertaking” and “revisiting” that suggestion.
Naranjo said that grant recipients, which includes Wide Open Walls, should meet a prerequisite that they are adhering to ethical “governing standards” before being awarded funds. The equity statement currently serves as a “philosophy that guides how the commission fulfills its powers and duties and carries out its work” said Jennifer Singer, the media and communications specialist for the city of Sacramento.
Wide Open Walls currently receives city funding from the American Rescue Plan Act Arts & Culture Nonprofit Recovery Program. This grant aims to support local arts and cultural organizations affected by the pandemic. Wide Open Walls was only one of several organizations to benefit from this grant.
The Arts Commission acts as a liaison between the artist community and the city of Sacramento. Its role is advisory and the commissioners provide recommendations on supporting the arts.
“To not be active in ensuring that there is equity in how artists are going to be treated (...) compromises us,” Cruz said during March’s meeting. “Inaction makes it look like we condone it, and we need to be the opposite of that. While we may not have enforcement authority, we do have compliance authority.”
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