A commitment to Placemaking.
We understand we exist within a system that creates preference for art from/by/through a white, male, Christian gaze and experience. We have the power to reshape the narrative and are invested in working with United States-based artists who identify as one or more of the following: Black, Indigenous, people of color, women, LGBTQIA+, non-binary, trans people, people living with physical or cognitive disabilities, Muslim, Jewish, and people from a variety of religious or spiritual traditions. The On Being Project understands ourselves to be an economic player in a racialized economy, and our goal is to put money into that imbalance. For this reason, we are transparent and specific with our rates: we pay a minimum of $500 per individual digital illustration, or $250 per image license. These rates are a starting point for discussion and collaboration.
In the spirit of transparency, it’s important to us that you know:
We strive to create space for creative freedom and the expression of each individual artist, and acknowledge that there are many stakeholders in the editorial process. Due to internal factors, we cannot promise that your work will be made publicly available for any number of reasons – including but not limited to: a cancellation of the project, a redirection from our editorial team, or a redirection from the creative leads. However, we can promise that you will always be compensated for your time regardless of the final status of the project.
The two people who currently make art hiring decisions are our Creative Director and Art Director. We acknowledge that our identities and lived experience afford us a particular and limited vantage point from which to engage the selection process. As such, we are committed to the ongoing development in our self-awareness surrounding identity and power as an essential component of our creative process. In light of this commitment, we share the identities of the people in these two positions: white cisgender female (Creative Director), Asian American cisgender female (Art Director). We recognize these make a difference for how we perceive art and how we are perceived and that these identities are not the totality of our or our commissioned artists’ lived experience.