‘There are a lot of small artists like me who rely on this, and they’re really suffering now,’ said Rachel Mitchell<\/p>\n
Rachel Mitchell has made a living off her artwork for more than a decade, but her primary source of income is now in jeopardy.<\/p>\n
The Sault-based artist paints natural scenery, animals and more on rocks she collects around the North Shore and Lake Superior, and over the years she\u2019s built a strong enough customer base \u2013 mostly in the U.S. \u2013\u00a0to turn her rock-painting hobby into a career through her business, Rachel’s Rocks.<\/p>\n
But when the U.S. government imposed its latest round of tariffs on a slate of Canadian goods last month, including a 50-per-cent levy\u00a0on artwork produced north of the border, Mitchell saw her sales\u00a0vanish overnight.<\/p>\n
\u201cUp until August of this year, I was able to send my stuff to the states without worrying about tariffs,\u201d she told SooToday.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow I can’t even afford to send my stuff to the states, and that’s where all my customers are.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Mitchell, that means a piece she would normally sell for $50 on Etsy will now cost an American customer $75 plus shipping \u2013 an increase\u00a0that\u2019s made doing business south of the border prohibitively expensive.<\/p>\n
Mitchell said she\u2019s not the only artist in the same position.<\/p>\n
\u00a0She\u2019s aware of others who have built customer bases in the U.S. over the years, who are now scrambling to keep their careers going.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of small artists like me who rely on this, and they’re really suffering now,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cGod help me if something doesn’t change because I can’t just throw it away. It’s 12 years of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
While she also earns income through her\u00a0YouTube following, Mitchell\u2019s artwork sales have plummeted from over $2,000 per month to just a single $49 sale since the tariffs took effect on Aug. 22.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a devastating blow after\u00a0years spent honing her craft and building a dedicated clientele.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s like being fired from a job that you’ve put everything into, and it’s gone . . . for something that you didn’t do or something that wasn’t your fault,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s terrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Mitchell said she\u2019s a \u201cCanadian and supports Canada,\u201d her customer base just happened to take off in the U.S. as she built her career.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re not the ones that find it interesting \u2013 it’s the people in the States that do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s what put food on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond the immediate loss in income, Mitchell worries she may permanently lose the customer base she spent years building.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s my audience, that’s my customers, that’s my clientele, and . . . you don’t get back from this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce you disappear, people don’t go looking for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mitchell\u2019s artwork is sold through Etsy<\/a>, and more can be found about her on her YouTube<\/a> and Facebook<\/a> pages.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘There are a lot of small artists like me who rely on this, and they’re really suffering now,’…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":903223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48],"class_list":["post-903222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=903222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/903223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}