Part of my “day job” (which is really the same thing as my night job because I work for myself) is that I have to wear different hats. Sometimes I’m strictly a business man making decision for the business. Sometimes I am a man who owns a job and strives to find more ways to own a business. Other times I’m an artist. Even that takes on various guises and I guess that’s a topic I’m putting out there today… the work you do and who you do it for?

Here’s my thing: Sometimes, when I wear my artist hat, I create art for my own use. I create it from scratch, I either do it for enjoyment (sadly, less and less time for that these days) while other times I create that art for a purpose but it’s still my own purpose.

There are times, however, when I create art for others. That’s not uncommon – most freelance artists know what it’s like to be a hired gun and we accept that part of how we make money can sometimes come in the form of how much ownership we retain of the art. Frequently, the more ownership we give up on a piece of art (copyright, licensing, reprint, redistribution, accreditation, etc.) means we make more money – seems like a fair deal, right?

However, I had a conversation with a fellow artist last night that brought up a few points that he found almost unbelievable. When I described that a sizable chunk of my work is working as a “ghost” artist (paid and entirely uncredited) he honestly couldn’t believe such a strata existed. I’m not talking about being hired by a charity organization to do a piece of work and then selling them the entire rights and all I’ve got to show for it is another graphic in my portfolio and a check in the bank. I’m talking about regular, for-hire work that I get paid for (what I feel is a fair rate) and I retain no rights, no credit, and… nothing to put in my portfolio because it’s part of the terms I agreed to (willingly, I might add).

My friend was amazed at this. I think I remember the phrase “pimping yourself out” jokingly tossed around.

On my side of the fence I found his surprise to be surprising. My background, before becoming a pixel-pusher includes being a musician. I worked from a home studio as well as at a professional firm and it was not at all uncommon to produce music that involved conditions of… complete anonymity. Granted, most of it could be credited in a portfolio under tight rules but there were certainly times where I, myself, worked under conditions of non-credit or else I worked with session musicians that frequently are never credited on the albums they play on at all.

For me, I guess I knew a long time ago that there’s an entire population of musicians that perform for artists for albums (or replace members of bands during recording) because they were simply better in the studio. It’s one thing to be a good musician in a band and even on stage – it’s another thing to be a perfect musician on a record that will be scrutinized at every level. Heck, I know of plenty of professional musicians who ghost on other artist’s albums and the credit they get is in the form of a humorous, but completely unidentifiable, nickname. Only people “on the inside” are the first to know that Thomas Dolby was credited as “Booker T. Boffin” on Def Leppard’s Pyromania album due to label restrictions.

So, in art, I’ve never found it unpaletteable to simply do the work, take the money, hand over the keys, and walk away not worrying about being able to shout to the world “Hey, I did that!” I make no apologies for knowing that, in order to make money, I have to work and this is another avenue of procuring work. Once I explained to my friend that I never considered it a slap in the face and I respected the work = pay arrangement he felt better that I wasn’t being taken advantage of.

In my mind it’s another way of taking the work that I do most every day and converting it to a sellable commodity – it’s putting my skills to use. It’s okay if the artist doesn’t get the credit because the business was compensated.

So, how do you feel about “ghost” work? Do you do it? Would you?

Please feel free to comment – I’d like to know how you’re putting your artist skills to work in balance with your business goals. There’s no wrong answer.