Fearless street artist Kizmet makes living in a van down by the river sound like a good idea

In Making a Living, we talk to artists and creatives about all things money — how they make it, how to support an artistic practice when you still have a day job, and how to handle things like taxes and slow periods when you're doing it full-time.

Toronto graffiti writer-and-muralist/event promoter/installation artist/set designer/art studio manager Kizmet has come up with a great solution for covering the high cost of rent in Canada's big cities: don't. Live in an RV instead.

When he first starts to explain his living situation, you might be tempted to file it under "graffiti writers say the zaniest things," but the more he explains it, the more it starts to make sense. And he isn't alone: the "#vanlife" trend has been hot on social media for half-a-decade now, and has been both lauded as the ultimate in minimalist living and criticized as glamorizing homelessness. But for Kizmet, it just makes sense. It allows him to travel and pay for studio space, and means he doesn't have to do as many "corporate" mural gigs.

By the end of the conversation, you wonder, "Why isn't everyone doing this?" (There are a number of reasons. For one, Kizmet started his RV project pre-COVID, and he says that the cost of used RVs has skyrocketed in the last two years. For another, finding places to park without getting ticketed can be tough.)

In this edition of Making a Living, Kizmet tells us about why he started living in an RV, going from "degenerate graffiti writer" to responsible business owner, how he makes bartering work for him, and why he values keeping creative control of his work more than almost anything.

So what is it you do?

I started off playing in bands and doing show promotion, like from high school, putting on concerts. Then I was promoting parties into my early 20s, and I was doing graffiti the whole time. Then graffiti turned into opening an art gallery called Funktion Gallery around 2009. And then I've been organizing mural events and art events.

But most recently, I'm trying to get into stage design, which was a hard market to crack until we sort of started making our own stuff for the event promotion. So I'm creating installations and doing stage design that are crazy art-based for underground parties and those sorts of things. 

And then right now I co-own and run an art studio, like a shared studio space. We've got a sweet studio space with welders, wood workers, painters, sculptors, seamstresses, but that's not even so much a business to make money as it is to pay for and have studio space. So that, event promotion, stage building, stage design, and occasionally some murals, but not as many murals these days. Pretty much anything creative.

So when did you realize you could make a full-time living from these creative endeavours?

At a very young age, I decided I didn't want to make money for somebody else. I had a call centre job as one of my first jobs and that just sullied [jobs] for me. When I was very young, like 14, I played in a band and was introduced early to the idea of getting my money from my door. So that was sort of what I was more accustomed to.

Then when I started actually working and having a job, I automatically realized how much I didn't want to do it. I have had side jobs here and there throughout my life, but it's always for somebody who's like a friend of mine. Like the guy who I run my business with now — the art studio — he's a contractor doing home renovation stuff, so I would work for him occasionally when I need money. But 2009 is when I kind of cut ties and I decided I was just strictly going to do art work.

So what are your expenses?

Let's put it this way. I basically live with my wife and a dog in an RV. It's like a really nice camper van RV. It sounds like we live in a van down by the river. I mean, it can be, because we can drive down by the river. But it's a really nice vehicle that I was able to get and renovate because I run an art studio. My expenses are basically RV insurance, which is surprisingly cheaper than regular insurance, and then gas and food. 

So how did this RV come to be?

My partner and I were planning on driving to South America. We were planning on doing a really big road trip through the United States, down through to Mexico. I've got a lot of family in different Latin American countries. We were going to sort of do what I did before with traveling and exchanging paintings. But only certain people can give you access to an apartment, right? A lot of families don't necessarily have the space to give you. So we thought it would be more comfortable if we got a sweet little camper van, and then people just had to point us to safe places to park.

So we began converting the vehicle with all the things we thought we'd need, but then COVID hit and all the borders closed. We didn't have a place to stay because we had abandoned everything for this vehicle. But then it just turned out that the vehicle was really comfy and we were like, "Why would we pay Toronto prices for an apartment when we got one on wheels?"

Where do you park it?

A lot of the time we park behind the studio, in the alleyway. We have a few places in the city that we have mapped where you can't get parking tickets, which is very rare, but there's a bunch of streets that are just sort of, like, in this weird limbo state, so you can just go park and it's fine. And sometimes we go park in a park or near a park, so we can wake up, have breakfast, spend the morning in the park, let the dog run around, and then we come back to the studio.

So how much do you make in a year, ballpark?

I can't really say. There's been a few years recently where I would just sell paintings for the purpose of going traveling. I would probably make, like, $20,000, from selling paintings, and then I would leave the country for an entire year. But then while I was gone, I'd be exchanging my stay in accommodations for doing artwork. So someone would give me their cabina on a hill by the ocean and I'd just paint them a mural, so I wouldn't really be spending money at all.

So I guess it's hard to say when you're working on the barter system?

I am an artist, right? So I do want people to be able to have access to my art. If I can, I figure out a way that we can do a trade. I've done murals for people, and they give me access to their gym for a year. Or someone will give me an apartment or a house for like three months, and then I work on a painting for them while I'm there.

What about expenses for your work?

We got the studio so we could have cheap studio space, and we tried to rent it as cheaply as possible to all the other artists. It's a pretty sweet studio. We try to keep the rent as low as possible, and myself and the other person as the owner, we also pay rent for the amount of space we take. Then the majority of all the things that I create and I make in terms of artwork, I do a lot of balancing. Someone will pay you for a job, and there will always be left over paint and that always carries on to the next gig. So I accumulate supplies. I try to do as much found material as possible from people who are doing other gigs and just throwing out materials, or friends of mine or doing demolition stuff.

Sometimes I put a call out into neighborhood groups like Facebook groups or on my Instagram and say, "I'm looking for this. If anyone's throwing out this, this or this, give me a call and I'll come pick it up." And again, it's always an exchange. So a lot of the time, if somebody says, "I have this or this," then I do a quick painting for them, or I'll bring them packs of stickers or a print.

How do you handle taxes?

I try to invoice everything right away and keep my receipts, and then I just have a family member who does all my taxes for me. When it came time to open an art studio, my business partner was like, "This is it. You've got to get serious about this now. You know can't be slacking on taxes, because that's that's where everything will get fucked up, right?"

Before, I was just doing paintings for whatever, couch surfing, and pretty much being a degenerate graffiti writer. But now at a certain point, it got pretty serious and I just had to seek out that family member, because Latino families look out for each other, and they kind of do my taxes for me.

What's your advice for young artists?

I've done corporate gigs for companies that just didn't give a shit about me, and there've been so many times in the past where I've come out of that feeling completely taken advantage of. Sometimes a company will throw you a whole bunch of money, just so they could put their sticker on your work, and then they ask you to change what you do.

But it's always easy to convince a roomful of suits that it's in their best interest to just let you do whatever your art is. That's why they came to you in the first place. And I think if more artists sort of have that attitude, it's better for everybody. We need to teach these giant companies that they can't just take advantage of artists. I'm pretty stern on keeping creative control of my own artwork. And read everything. Read everything that you fucking sign. I will never, ever hand over the rights to my artwork. You don't want, down the line, someone to be selling prints of your artwork because you signed some piece of paper.

Answers have been edited for length and clarity. If you're an artist who wants to talk money for Making a Living, email christopher.dart@cbc.ca.