artist

art teacher

stage assistant

stage

party host

Painting with a Twist

This job asks a lot of you. Training is provided, but you are expected to pay for your own online training to get a permit to serve alcohol. You’re expected be able to work office hours (handling calls and reservations, primarily) for $8.00/hr. Assisting classes means you handle alcohol orders, refilling paint, and anything else the instructor needs ($10/hr). Sometimes you have to assist two classes at once. Instructors must be able to recreate a painting just by looking at it (your “prepaint” is only worth $10 paid time no matter how long you spent on it), do a live painting in class under two hours, and serve alcohol if the class has no assistant (class must have at least 10 people for an assistant). The instructor must also be able to teach well while wearing a microphone and music set to a very high volume. 

It is hard to get the hours needed for a full time position. The class is cancelled four hours beforehand if there are less than three reservations. If you are scheduled to assist and there is less than 10 reservations, you lose those hours as well. This company goes through new employees like crazy because hours are so competitive. The rules and schedule constantly change as well and you have to check it daily. 

Another reason new employees are not likely to stay is because they are looking for a very specific type of person. You can perform as an instructor perfectly, but if you don’t have that “party persona,” they’re not likely to keep you. It is high emotional labor to be super happy and upbeat day after day. It’s a good idea to have another job on the back burner in case you’re terminated.

Another important thing to note: you start out on a conditional basis. You are given a 90 day period, after which you have a review to determine if you get to stay. (You are of course, paid for your time during this period). It was unclear if it was a span of 90 days, or 90 days in which you actually worked. I was let go three months after working there, the reason being that I “didn’t pass my trial period.” So don’t be afraid to ask about how you’re performing and when the review will be, often. 

Finally, when you sign on for your trial period, you also have to sign a non competition agreement. Basically, it says that you can’t work for a similar business or do independent work similar to the Painting With a Twist for a period of three years after you quit or are let go. This can prevent artists from seeking opportunities if the trail period doesn’t work out. 

One last note: if you become a regular employee, you are invited to create original work to teach. This art becomes property of Painting With a Twist, but you have the opportunity to make commission if the class sells out.

WARNING! This job is very, VERY part time. There were instances where my classes didn't run for two weeks straight. They need a minimum of 4 people to sign up for classes in order for them not to get cancelled.  You also don't know if you're working until 2 HOURS before the class time. So you can't plan your day around your work schedule.

The job itself was very fun though. You have to like people and be an entertainer as well as be an artist. I found having a theatre background goes hand in hand with this job. If you are a quiet person or don't know social skills, then you will not succeed here. You also learn quite a lot of painting techniques here. You also receive tips, but again, that's only if you're an entertaining instructor. The average person doesn't think to tip at places like this, so you really have to maintain the fun vibe at all times. You can play your own music and turn on dance lights, it's really fun.

Besides hours, the only odd complaint is sometimes you get customers who are painting very slowly and get mad when you move the class along. You have a time limit, so you can't stop the class for every single person. You move the class along when at least half of the class has a step done. But most of the time the customers were fun because the studio is BYOB and everyone is there to have a good time.

My only suggestion for corporate: Please reconsider some of your paintings in the art gallery, old and new. Take the time to actually try them out and not submit them willy nilly to the art gallery. Some paintings our studio scheduled were either awful or downright impossible to complete within 2 hours. A lot of the pre-sketches with figures on them were very complicated for the average customer, to the point where they become frustrated and are no longer having fun. A lot of those need to be taken out because of the complaints. Obviously us artists can do it not problem, but it's not worth to keep some of them if the customers can't even do it.

I had a good time working there. My favorite part of the job was seeing customers learn that they can paint without any formal training, and the classes (for the most part) were always fun. Of course, as you can imagine, the fun factor depends on the people in class. A typical day as an artist is show up early to set up for class, spend 2 hours on a stage instructing a painting and helping customers, and then cleaning up and sending out a thank you email.

It does seem like the longer the company is around the more downhill it goes, especially with the introduction of new gimmicks that seemed a desperate attempt to lure in new customers. Things like candle making, wooden cutout panting, plastering a screen and then painting, finger crochet, making slime, and who knows what else now. When I left it seemed to be a revolving door of people. 

Even after 7 years of working there I felt underappreciated, once being told to my face by one of the owners "what do we even pay you for?" because the newest gimmick (pop-in and paint) was implemented as way to "pay for you(me) to be here during the day".  and wasn't popular enough.

I managed the studio 5 days a week, 10-5, completely alone while also teaching private parties, kids classes, running advertisements, answering phone calls and emails, creating the monthly schedule, training employees, doing inventory, restocking supplies, scrubbing floors and bathrooms, repainting walls, decorating for every season, doing work left undone from employees the night before, studio organization, hosting offsite events, and much more. I never got a raise past my initial $2 pay increase when I took on the responsibilities of manager. This is despite my counterpart at a sister location (owned by the same people) making more than me and having only been in the manager position a month or two longer than I. She ended up leaving for similar reasons.

I miss this job, and I miss my coworkers.

I have 10 years of experience as a painting instructor at both the private and public sector so getting the job was easy. I rejected their offer at first because it was lowballed but they reached out a few months later with a higher offer and I ended up taking it briefly to feel it out.

 While this happened to be the busiest place I've worked at minus public ed, it also happened to have the lowest compensation of any of the establishments I've worked for. The pay scheme is set up in a somewhat convoluted way depending on what your position is, so even if you're hired at a higher rate, any shifts where you aren't the instructor means your wage is suppressed despite requiring all the skills of all the positions, or more if you happen to work with a staff member that can't serve alcohol yet. The tips were also split in an unfair way IMO, with bar and instructor having complete discretion on whether or not they tip out any other staff.

Turnover was high because the incentives and flexibility didn't bare out. I was only there a couple of months because scheduling was impossible.  Since I've left, their 2 other regular employees have also left the team within that quarter. They don't offer enough hours or money to be primary work but they regularly tried to schedule me, call me in, or have me on call during times that were already established  as not available. Both meetings I attended everyone got chewed out for not prioritizing their availability at this establishment despite the low incentives for doing so (sub 20 for collegiate staff.)

The incentive they gave staff for being on call and available during holidays was a "surprise bonus" of a whopping $15.

Management was nevertheless polite and tried their best to accommodate both the owners demands and the workers needs.

Throughout my employment, I experienced consistent pay cuts for whatever it seemed like management felt at times, which were challenging to navigate. Additionally, there seemed to be a lack of respect between employees and certain members of the management team.
One notable concern was the absence of effective marketing techniques tailored to our location's demographic. It felt like management wasn’t quite in tune with how to actually create a fun and interesting experience for patrons. There was a lack of creativity on that end, other locations have caterers come on certain days or DJ’s on some nights promoting a party vibe for that nights classes. A-lot of customers would complain about the paintings that were on the schedule and management would ignore all recommendations from employees.
Management is very overbearing and aggressive at times, constantly calling employees outside of work and again deducting pay for minuscule mistakes or mishaps. There was also a lack of awareness regarding the needs of the contracted instructors as artist such as proper supplies (i.e. broken brushes, outdated mics and music players, easels duct taped together, etc.) 
Despite these challenges, I genuinely enjoyed working with the customers and retained lots of customers for my personal business through building rapport over time with regulars and creating a fun unique atmosphere in my classroom. 

At first when I started at PWAT, I loved it. But the more time I stay there, the worse it gets. The entertainment market is saturated with PWATs and PWAT rip-offs, and the company is already feeling the cut down to its bones. Working at PWAT is fun, and it's especially great for people who love painting and teaching. Don't expect to grow much as an artist though. Essentially, here you will be considered an entertainer, not an artist. Which is fine, but not if you expect to work here for artistic reasons. Your art here is no longer yours, and once it's theirs, you never even get paid for it. They pit artists against each other with "contests" where no one actually wins more than a $100 bill, but corporate gets to keep their art and all the sales money of that art, FOREVER. If you leave the company, they still make money off of you, but you've lost the right to your art. Corporate is disorganized and money hungry, and doesn't listen to any feedback from franchise owners, managers or employees. On top of that, to make even minimum wage you'll have to have at least one other job. I work three jobs now. Classes can be cancelled last minute based on customer turnout, so even if you're scheduled for several classes a week, you can't depend on them. At my busiest, I made $315 in a week. That was one week out of two years. Most weeks I make $100 OR LESS. It's not a living wage. This would be great for someone who likes entertaining and is retired or in college, but not much else. Anyone who wants to get paid for their artwork? Look elsewhere.

I am an artist at so I loved being able to paint for a living. This job taught me people skills I did not previously have by having its employees perform a painting lesson onstage in front of a class of strangers. I did well for the first 5 months, even being promoted to the equivalent of assistant manager and having added responsibilities (but with no pay increase). 

Then the owner, whom I had not met since I started working there (I was interviewed by a different manager), returned from rehab. He was inconsiderate, irresponsible, rude, and put more pressure on us than we could physically handle. 
We would not get paid for all our hours worked. If the customers caused a class to exceed the two hour limit, we did not receive payment for the extra time, which could very easily turn into an hour or two with large classes. Many nights ended with the employees in tears.
Then I learned that we were being classified as "contract workers" despite having a dress code, the owner setting our schedules, using their facility and provided materials, and in an effort to avoid paying us for every hour we worked. We should have been classified as W-2 or W-4 employees based on this criteria. I spoke up about this owner's mistreatment and was passive aggressively let go, by way of reducing my hours to the point that I was forced to find another job. Most of my coworkers have also quit.

I wish my experience had been better. I believe if not for the management, this could have been a dream job.

I worked here for about a year and three months. Before being fired I was the longest lasting employee. We had a high turn over rate (and for good reason). 
The job it's self was lots of fun and I genuinely did enjoy teaching. The biggest part that I didn't like regarding the job was doing the same paintings over and over and over again. It became a bit creatively dampening. Customers and other artists were generally nice and fun to work with. The hardest part of the job was to keep everyone on the same page, especially when a 'perfectionist' comes in and MUST leave with a perfect painting. 
The management was less than satisfactory. During my time there I was under two different managers. The second one is nothing more than a sock poppet for the owner. I feel that any concerns I had were unheard because they didn't want to tell the temperamental owner OR my words were twisted and then a lie was told to the owner. There had been many times that I had a concern, brought up the concern to management, and then given a poor excuse. 
When I was fired I was told that the amount of days I took off for the next month were an issue (I took of Wednesdays and Saturdays plus one Sunday), they had an issue with me being friends with ex-employees, they claimed that I caused drama and that I "poison the other artists", that I was jealous of the current manager and her position, and that I (compared to the current management) am not solution-oriented. These are a lot of the same reasons why my former co-workers were also fired before me. 


The pay was good. The job could be fun when things ran smoothly... On a night when tips were good, you could walk out very very happy... but as the customer base changed, tips stopped altogether.

Clients would get way too drunk, way to rowdy and way too disrespectful. People would show up to a scheduled class more than halfway into it and then expect to get the full benefit of the lesson and if they did not then they would complain to management. The policies about that were never enforced or upheld.

The hours of operation when people are supposed to be able to call in, may as well not even be posted, because if there isn't a class scheduled, then there's usually no one there. 

As far as working there goes... just don't. We ran out of supplies all the time, communication with customers was dependent on someone who wasn't paid enough to do that nor was it their job. The current customer base is abominable.

The people who work there and run it are sweet and they are caring and they are wonderful to be around, truly, they are fantastic to have as friends but the artists really should be running the business. 

Pay is a whole other matter... even on the rare occasion that you do get paid on time (and I mean on the right day not just the right hour) it may not even clear at the bank. The job is stress compiled on top of stress because it is run poorly, and the 3rd time they bounced a paycheck on me, I resolved to leave.

but that's only one location, and I know that the general company is much better.

I worked for this company for 2 years. While I loved the class/teaching environment and my coworkers, the business model is not fair to the employees. Some days I would teach for 8-12 hours straight, no break, no time to eat, no mental recharge time. While in contrast, other days you would only teach one class (3 hours). Meaning the schedule/weekly pay is not stable at all, my paychecks would vary from 70 dollars to 400 dollars, which is fine if you are in school or have this as a second job.

This is a fun working environment, but the location I worked at has some owner issues. I imagine everyone's experience is different based on ownership/management. Both my previous managers were wonderful, took into account the days we could(n't) work, were flexible, and understanding. (the manager now, is not that way) While the owner is the complete opposite: creates unrealistic expectations, doesn't pay the employees fairly, and doesn't understand how to teach. There were multiple occasion where I painted a painting for 3 hours, and would only get paid for an hour, because "I'm an artist and am expected to paint correctly the first time". 

The HR department is unreachable, so if you have a harassment issue there is no one to contact! 

In summary: this is a great place to learn how to educate a classroom, my coworkers were great, and it can be a "fun" place to work. But the owner is unstable, doesn't understand basic human needs, and not-so-borderline harasses her employees. So it just depends what location you're at!

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Artist 83 salaries reported	$16.67 per hour
Art teacher 46 salaries reported	$16.21 per hour
Stage assistant 2 salaries reported	$16.50 per hour
Stage 11 salaries reported	$16.59 per hour
Party host 32 salaries reported	$12.84 per hour

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