Working with the United Bible Societies: A Cautionary Tale

If you're a Filipino artist like me, there's a good chance you heard from the art community grapevine some horror stories about the Philippine Bible Society. I heard one around May 2007 from a trusted friend and a second one a few weeks later from another. Over the phone he asked me what I've been up to lately and I answered:

"I'll be trying out for a new PBS illustrated Bible project." 

He quickly replied:

“Never work for them, they think artists are garbage and don’t deserve to be paid well.”

I guess my friend was also referring to the opprobrium that artists suffer in a country that worships doctors, lawyers and over-glorified prizefighters. He continued that he knew someone who used to work as an illustrator for the PBS. Not only was his friend underpaid, he also had to wait 6 months for the check.

Back then it was easy to shrug these off because a famous Marvel Comics artist who referred the PBS to me said they were so proud of their new book (called the Global Illustrated Project) that they envisioned it to be the definitive, most historically, archaeologically accurate and most "beautiful" illustrated Bible of all time! It sounded so ambitious that the budget must be spectacular.

Things were more exciting to me when I called the PBS and the guy there said the project was financed by Bible Societies from Canada, Germany, Brazil, Nigeria and of course, the Philippines. Their umbrella organization, the United Bible Societies, was already in its 8th month of their GLOBAL artist search that kicked off since late 2006 -- indicating how serious they were with their latest endeavor.

So despite the 2 cautionary tales I heard from my friends -- against my better judgment -- I went to the scheduled interview at the PBS office that weekend. After all, what my friends told me happened a decade or so ago, the PBS is under a new administration and their GIP is well-funded by 5 national Bible Societies. The project sounded big. Epic.

The pay should be phenomenal.

With my best samples I went to their offices and the first thing the female linguist/Bible translator said to me was to put into consideration the countless charities the PBS has done in the Philippines and emphasized to keep my rates LOW so I could have a better chance of winning what she called their "once in a lifetime opportunity" project. Needless to say, I was crushed.

After several minutes of her bloviating, she finally looked at my painted samples. The meeting lasted for 2 hours, because more people came in to review my portfolio and ask more stupid questions. They were beaming with excitement and pride of their much celebrated GIP while I sat there disappointed and disgusted.

I told them I'll think about it at home. It was all I could do the rest of the day. By evening, I e-mailed them my final rates, confident that it was fair to both parties. No, "fair" is an understatement. To be honest, the rates I quoted were low for an international publication. I had bills to pay and I still found the project tempting because it'll give me the chance to work for God, devout Catholic I am.

A week later, they gave me a painting exam. A few weeks after that, I won the project.

Their global artist search is now officially over.

But before I could start their GIP, I had to work first on their pilot project, a 13-illustration Bible Christmas children's book The Coming of the King. The 13 paintings I'll be doing for the kiddie book will simply be re-used for the GIP.

Since I gave them cheap rates and the realistic art style they were looking for -- at least they’ll give me the respect and treatment I was expecting from a Christian organization.

But that was never the case....

In the ensuing months as I worked on the huge 20" x 30" paintings, their art director, a cranky old American curmudgeon, yelled at me because he thought I couldn't pronounce the word magi correctly (he didn't know I was actually going to say its singular form magus.) He yelled at me the second time when I complained that my 13 thumbnail sketches took them 2 WEEKS for approval and my tight pencils took them A MONTH for approval before I could start the painting phase.

It also took him A WEEK to answer my important e-mails. And when I finally received a reply, all I got was "I don't care about that." He often forgot crucial details that caused me problems and delays. And when I got delayed, he had the audacity to lecture me about deadlines. They were late and I got clobbered for it!

I really needed their approval for my preliminary pencils so I can begin the painting stage because there's an unforgiving stipulation in my contract obligating me to return the 50% down payment if I was a day late! He also demanded more from my work, oblivious how badly underpaid I was. I often heard him say "make it bigger!" or "add more!" but when it came to my rates "make it less!"

The American also loved to stay in 5-star hotels whenever he was in the country for one of his redundant meetings with me and the PBS. He was uncontested in gobbling up the project budget with his travelling and luxurious hotel accommodations while I contented myself with my modest fees. I approached this project humble and servile while he swaggered around an unapologetic slave driver. 



Final pencils for the Nativity scene

The Filipina linguist (who interviewed me and also tasked to oversee my work) was also exasperating. She often belittled my submissions and liked to overscrutinize even the most mundane details such as a rope or a sandal. She accused me of plagiarizing. She can't interpret the thumbnail sketches (ok, she's a linguist after all) so she usually waits for the finished paintings before making a critique and requesting revisions. Since my paintings were done in transparent watercolors, fix-ups are impossible.

She accorded me this way because her first choice was a Filipino oil painter among the many GIP applicants:

http://lawrencejose.bravehost.com/

No, he was everyone's first choice! He was the first guy they contacted and was hoping to commission but because my fees were 1/4 of his, the GIP was "awarded" to me.

Their "creative coordinator," also a Filipino, often insulted and ridiculed my work. He was extremely condescending. The worst he did was during a conference meeting in which I was invited. He arrogantly made fun of my paintings in front of the board members. With his Cheshire grin, he gleefully pointed out flaws in my work while I shrank there silent, helpless and embarrassed.

The preparation of the contract was also an example of how unethical, unprofessional and unbelievably slow they were. I said "unethical" and "unprofessional" because they engaged my services before issuing the contract to me. In fact, I was already in my 4th month of work before I signed the papers. I said "unbelievably slow" because it took them exactly 5 MONTHS to prepare the short 3-page contract -- the same time it took me to finish the entire project -- all 13 full-size realistic watercolor Bible illustrations!

So between the creative coordinator, the linguist and the American art director, it felt like I was being stabbed, punched, kicked and mauled at from all directions. But it didn't end there. There were still the 4 national Bible Societies to deal with and additional PBS officials overseeing my work. There were so many cooks in the kitchen, so many to placate, so many criticizing my work, so many who had their own requirements for every painting I did, so many who forgot I'm a human being.

So you could imagine what a demoralizing nightmare it was.

Coming to my senses, I quit. They were shocked. They found it unthinkable that an artist would actually abandon their "once in a lifetime opportunity" project since there were artists from all over the world who fought tooth and nail for this gig. They thought I desperately wanted the project they must have said to themselves:

"Hey, this guy wants our project so badly that we can pay him shit and treat him like shit and he will still stick with us!"

This pilot project lasted from June 2007 to May 2008 -- almost 12 months in total. As I mentioned earlier, it took me 5 months to complete everything. You might ask what happened to the remaining 7 months? Well, that's another reality I had to deal with while working with the UBS/PBS. Those 7 months were spent on their conference meetings, figuring out how to write a contract, emergency meetings, brainstorming and whatever. So much time was lost to them that so little was left for me to work on the project. So they forced me to rush everything for the book's December 2008 release.

As of November 2010, 2 years and 6 months after I quit, I was surprised they still couldn’t find an artist to continue their GIP:

http://bibleillustration.blogspot.com/2008/10/ubs-global-illustration-project.html

They haunted local art schools and posted in the Internet. They tried to woo me back last June 2009. 12 months of their maltreatment, unprofessionalism, inefficiency, opportunism, fallibility and ignorance of procedures and of course the LOW PAY were too much to tolerate, what more for 4 or 5 years? Sorry, any self-respecting artist who wants to do an illustrated Bible publication will go to Scandinavia or Zondervan -- not the United Bible Societies.

My friends even told me while the Bible Societies contacted people looking for anyone available, they’ve been derogating me, calling me spiritually immature and other things unprintable here. Trashing my reputation because they have now exceeded their budget due to delays caused by my sudden departure.  

So I wrote here -- sharing MY cautionary tale.