This is The Rent Edit, a package from CULTURED that explores the financial reality of being an artist in 2026. Elsewhere, artists reveal the luxuries they have given up—and refused to let go of—in order to build a creative life in New York and what it really costs to live and work in the city.
Many artists don’t forget their first sale—or what they bought with the proceeds. You might expect it to be something glamorous: champagne, a new car, perhaps an aggressively expensive piece of furniture. But the reality is often simpler, more profound, and considerably more revealing. There’s rent, immigration fees, materials, and student loans. Then there are the oddball purchases: Jamian Juliano-Villani bought a green python Chanel bag that, by her own admission, “doesn’t go with anything.” Oscar yi Hou found an Eames chair that would eventually become, in his words, a trusted companion to his ass. More than anything, the first big sale buys a sense of security—a feeling that it might really be possible to make a life as an artist after all.
Below, 12 artists tell us where the money went when their work finally started paying them back.
Laurie Simmons, artist and filmmaker based in New York
“When my first show at Artists Space in 1979 was reviewed in the Village Voice, three women collectors asked if they could come by the studio to buy some of my four-by-five-inch dollhouse photographs. I was charging $50 and they literally pressured me to sell them for $35 apiece. They said if I gave them a discount, they would bring all their friends, so I agreed. There is no question that money went towards rent or ConEd. And by the way, they never brought their friends. I’m pretty sure they either wrote me a check or gave me cash in the studio. It reminded me of selling pot in high school.”
Paul Anthony Smith, painter and picotage artist based in New York
“The first substantial check I received went towards paying off debt. I was the first in my family to attend a four-year college. Little did I know, my loans were sold off a few times, I was unable to be reached due to changing addresses and phone numbers. It was the most I’ve ever been in debt. The stress was mounting from the multiple daily calls from a collections agency. I needed a change. For a few months, I saved all my checks. Once the funds were cleared, I called the collections agency and paid off the loan in full.
In other moments of my career, large checks have been allocated to covering my studio expenses and maintaining a life as an artist knowing the ups and downs are inevitable. I’ve seen the rise and fall of many careers and it’s only necessary to be frugal in a city like New York. The rent is high and the cost of living keeps going up. I’m often at odds with my future here and maneuvering the real estate market. My current studio is conveniently located close to home in the Bronx, and I’ve occupied that space since 2020. I’ve entertained the thought of moving but there is nothing out there close to what I have, or I haven’t searched enough. The rent has doubled since being there and to relocate is currently inconvenient.”
Deborah Kass, mixed media artist based in New York
“Once upon a time there was a government agency called the National Endowment for the Arts that gave grants to individual artists. The ‘big’ one was $15,000. In 1987, I got a call from a then-famous artist who said, ‘I am in DC and just gave you an NEA!’ At that time, $15,000 was almost as much as I earned at the fantastic waitress job I had just left. To me, it was a fortune. What did I buy with this enormous windfall? I took the subway up to David McKee Gallery on 57th Street in search for a work of art I adored by my favorite painter, Philip Guston: his print Painter, 1983, published by Gemini G.E.L. I had never thought to own a work of art, but I coveted this one with a burning passion and now, for the first time, I had some extra cash. Unfortunately, there were none available. But they did have Room, priced at $1,300. This would be the first work of art I ever bought. A year later, in 1988, I got a call from McKee—they now had an edition of Painter available. So after my next big windfall, a sold-out show made possible by my big NEA grant at a now-defunct gallery, I marched right back up to McKee and bought it.”
Edgar Heap of Birds, multi-disciplinary artist based in Oklahoma City
“For many years, I resided in the old wooden home site of our Arapaho great grandmother Nancy Lee North. It was 500 acres of canyon lands and juniper trees from the allotments which tribal citizens were allowed to retain after the Reservation was stolen by the U.S. government. Upon one of my first major sales of studio work, my family and I bought back a small segment of the above-mentioned Reservation land. This purchase was near Geary, Oklahoma and the home of my mother, Arapaho tribal member.”
Jose Dávila, multi-disciplinary artist based in Guadalajara, Mexico
“My first big check came from selling a dissected shipping container I made for the now-defunct Art Positions section at Art Basel Miami Beach. I used the money to buy the small studio in Guadalajara that I had been renting. [It was] a 120-square-meter studio there probably cost less than five square meters in Manhattan, but to me it meant everything: I finally had a place that was truly mine.”
Jamian Juliano-Villani, painter based in New York
“The first thing I bought was a Chanel bag. It was a green python crossbody. Doesn’t go with anything. Hah.”
Natalie Frank, multi-disciplinary artist based in New York
“I remember clearly the first piece I bought with my first big sale! I was a student in Paris at the Beaux Arts and someone bought a painting I did in class. I went to Paul Prouté, the incredible graphics workshop, and leafed through their print collection. I couldn’t believe they let art students do this. I ended up buying a small Dürer, Flagellation of Christ, from 1512. Even when I was 19, my tastes were the same: sexuality, violence, and their intersection with the body under duress. I felt like I had gotten away with a murder, somehow trading my work for the same money that bought this one. I remember thinking, surely, everyone involved is going to want the works returned.”
Tavares Strachan, conceptual artist based in New York and Nassau, Bahamas
“The first substantial check I received for my work was for a piece that sold after I represented the Bahamas at the 2013 Venice Biennale. I used it to buy my first house back home. Looking back, I realize I wasn’t chasing success so much as I was investing in the place that had given me my imagination. It’s fitting that the first thing art made possible for me was a deeper connection to home.”
Ali Eyal, multi-disciplinary artist based in Los Angeles
“The first substantial check I received from my art came while I was living in Beirut. I used it to pay rent and cover some expenses I had been struggling with for months. It wasn’t a glamorous purchase, but it was probably the first time I felt that art might actually sustain a life.”
Shantell Martin, multi-disciplinary artist based in New York and Los Angeles
“My first substantial check was in 2012 for a project at Newtown Plaza in Hong Kong; I created a design for a large floor mural and live wall drawings, which all became the backdrop for a fashion show they were holding there. It was the biggest check I’d ever received in my life, and when I deposited the 50 percent deposit, that was the most money I’d ever had in my bank account ever at one time.
I had a hard think about what to purchase around that time. I paid rent, and I bought art supplies: some nice paper to draw on, and some beautiful wooden panels that I primed and made art on. When you’ve spent your whole life living month to month, the real purchase here was security. That cushion in the bank gave me confidence in being an artist, and continuing to do what I do.”
Amalia Ulman, artist and filmmaker based in New York
“My first paychecks from art sales were all used for very basic needs. When I was a teenager, I won some art prizes, received some grants, and used it all to study in London at Central Saint Martins. Later, from art sales, I remember very vividly buying fresh produce and really savoring it. Other than that, a lot of my money went, unfortunately, to the USCIS [immigration services]. To housing and healthcare. One time, though, I did risk it all and put all my money into one basket: producing my first feature, El Planeta. Only recently was I able to be more eccentric with my disposable income… a plot at the pet cemetery for my dead cat, Chinese lessons, expensive horse riding lessons, and thousands of dollars in training for my service dog, Variety Magazine.”
Oscar yi Hou, painter based in New York
“A large part of my first payouts went to hefty visa/immigration legal fees, alongside housing costs—before it got outlawed I paid a 15 percent broker’s fee to move into my apartment. Artists usually are doubly rent-burdened—we have studios to pay for, too.
But besides those burdens, it was just after my Brooklyn Museum show, and I had just ended a serious relationship. I was all torn up and sad about it. So, a friend took me to the Design Within Reach Outlet store where I ended up purchasing a discounted Eames Soft Pad Executive chair in black leather.
Over the years, it has molded perfectly to my ass, and has been my trusted companion across many studio moves.”
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