How to build a career as an artist
Here’s a post for all the people who are trying to be artists. It is not a friendly post. I do not think that people who want to create art need to get paid to do it. Do you get paid to have sex? No. Same thing. You love it, but you just do it after work. And sometimes, if you are driven mad by it, you leave work in the middle of the day for it.
Treat art the same way, and you will stay sane. Really. Here are five things I would nag you about if you were talking with me about your burgeoning career as an artist:
1. You cannot do art if you are starving.
The starving artist routine is total bullshit. I know because I did it. Once you know that you are not going to make rent, you can’t really make art. Because your sense of self-preservation insists that your brain focus on the possibility that you will be out on the street. Your brain cannot stop solving that problem long enough to solve the problem of what is truth and beauty.
Here are some things I did while I was becoming a writer: I ate only bagels because I didn’t have enough money for anything else and then I got anemic and had to go to the doctor but I didn’t have health insurance so I had to lie and say I did in order to get the iron pills I needed so that I didn’t pass out from exhaustion the moment I woke up in the morning. Believe me, I was not making great art during this period.
2. Art emanating from a black hole is a choice.
There’s a reason that Jean-Michel Basquiat’s paintings look like horror films: Because his life was a crack-house horror film. And there’s a reason that Picasso is tearing apart voluptuous women in gorgeous surroundings: That’s what he did in real life.
So don’t kid yourself: Your art reflects your surroundings, and you can live like a pauper, but that limits the range of your art.
During my art days, I did not go out with friends. Ever. Because I didn’t even have enough money to go to a coffee shop. And I was always cold because I lived in Boston and didn’t have a winter coat. At many points I did not have a home, so I just sort of carried my laptop around and wrote and hoped that something would come up by the end of the day. And I almost never had clean clothes because I didn’t have money to buy detergent.
So I wrote stories, every day, about not seeing anyone, and my mentor would say things like, “How about adding a character so that the narrator can have a conversation?” And that would strike me as a revolutionary idea.
3. Real artists will make art no matter what.
You do not need a studio, or a desk, or peace and quiet. Really. Because making art comes from a place that you cannot stop. People who need to make art make art no matter what.
Do you know how many blog posts I throw out? Maybe two a week. Because sometimes something happens and I absolutely have to write about it, and I see, from the beginning, that there’s no way I’ll be able to relate it to careers, so it’s going to end up in the blogging trash can. But I write it anyway.
Do you know Christo and Jeanne-Claude? Wait. Here, look at some photos. The guy is nuts. He thinks so big that it makes him crazy. He’s been making plans to put up cloth all over Central Park for 26 years. He can’t stop himself. Finally, he did it. But who knew if it would ever happen? This is what I mean. If you need to do art, you just go there. Nothing stops you.
So if you think you’re an artist and you are not making art now, but you think that in the right circumstance you’d make art, you are lying to yourself. I’m sorry. But it’s true. Unless you are starving. If you are starving, see point number one: You need to get a job.
4. You do not need to quit your day job.
Are you making money and you’re wondering if you should quit your job to do art full time? Take this test: Did you marry rich? Do you have a trust fund? Do you have reliable buyers for almost everything you produce? If you did not answer yes to any of these, then keep your day job.
Don’t tell me it’s crushing your soul. This whole blog is about how your soul does not depend on your job or your boss or your paycheck. Click on some links and read them.
Also, most corporate jobs can be creative outlets because businesses solve problems. So if you are an inherently creative thinker, you probably bring that to whatever job you have. You can’t stop yourself.
5. You are not a better artist if you can do it full time.
I don’t want to see snooty comments on this post about how great you are for being able to support yourself with your art. Because I can do that too. And you know what? I was not a worse writer when I could not support myself. The only difference between artists making money and artists not making money is that the first group is better at business. And there is no evidence that artists who are better at business make better art.
Do you want to know if you’re going to be good at earning money from art? Take this test about networking from UpMo and Pepperdine University. The test will tell you how good you are at networking. And if you are not good at this test, you are not going to be good at selling your art, because the days of discovering someone with a sawed-off ear in an insane asylum are over. You need to market yourself. Do you want to know why there are so many crappy films in the world? Because there are so many great networkers who want to direct.
So everyone can stop being a snob about asking people how much money they make from their art. And everyone can stop thinking that the be-all-end-all is to quit the day job and do art full time.
Do you want to know how to be an artist? Make art. Do it because you need to do it. Because you think you will die if you don’t do it. Stop making it a career problem. It’s not. And, I leave you with one of my favorite posts, that I never get to link to, about me making myself crazy being an artist.
This post reminds me of the “Snap out of it” slap in Moonstruck. Thank you. I’m so tired of friends telling me how talented I am, how all I need to do to be recognized is this or that. Useless drivel. What I need is for them to buy my work or just shut up.
I know I’m talented but truth is I just don’t care. I don’t spend every waking moment with a brush in hand though I wish I were exactly that type of artist. I’m just not. I have a job unrelated to art and I paint when I feel like painting and not because I need to eat.
Of course I’d like to make money off my work but I don’t care enough about it to make that happen. If I sell I sell, if not then not. I stopped caring about a career in art many years ago and as it turned out that decision has freed me to get truly creative in my work. If I’m not making art to sell, then I’m making art that resonates within me.
My work continues to evolve (slowly) and that’s just fine. The good news is I can now paint what I want and not suffer over making a living at it. If you can do both then good for you. If you can’t then stop crying about it, accept it, and go be.
Thank you for writing this. I really needed to read something like this right now.
It sounds like you are unhappy with your life. Usually people that are, try to bring other people down so they too are unhappy. It is such a negative post I hope that no artist takes this advice. Instead do what feels right and do what you can with what you have. Follow your dreams and don’t let no body tell you you’re wrong. It may sound cliche but it worked for me no matter who told me it couldn’t happen. You have to dream big and work hard. You never know unless you try and what do you have to lose. If art is your passion than do it, just do it an even if you don’t make it who cares? Is it a waste of time? No. How can happiness be a waste of time? But who knows maybe im wrong maybe it’s better to be negative. Also the whole sex and art thing is a horrible comparison……just no….
Amen sister… I stopped reading after the rich kid bashing.
excelent post. You should repair the “test” link. I really want to do it. Im just in second semester of Art and third of physics and i want to know how good am i doing.
Thanks Bro.
sorry for the English i’m not good at it.
What a wonderful blog! It’s all spot-on true! I’ve found that when I have a decent 9-5 job, I spend my free time on my artistic endeavors- and those get to be whatever i want, since Im just creating for myself, and it doesn’t matter if it sells or not. (And from time to time I even sell a piece that I made, too) that’s a bonus.
Also, a side effect of having a day job and being artistic on my own time is that I have ended up with multiple portfolios, with many pieces where my personal art and business sides sometimes come together, like in graphic design and web work and other pieces of artwork I created for just myself. I’ve found in job interviews for jobs that didn’t even have the word ‘designer’ in them that those managers really liked seeing examples of a creative side, and I have been hired for that reason. Just because some job has a all-biz sounding title doesn’t mean creative critical thinking and skills isn’t valuable there. And then at night, the biz paycheck buys the canvas, paint, and pencils… Thanks for sharing your insightful perspective in this blog!
Honestly, I think this is very misleading. Do not name your post as if you’re trying to help artists, when you’re only puting us down. I don’t understand how you can say art should only be a hobby. If I put months of work into a piece of art, and someone wants that piece of art in there home, they should pay me for it.
Art runs through my veins i have loved art ever since i can remember. I love expressing myself on a page and creating. I cant imagine ever doing anything else but i have no idea how to get my work out there.
So… fyi, I *do* have a trust fund and still work my soul crushing 40 hour per week job… maybe I should just leave. But honestly I’ve been trying to do the *right* thing like everybody else, but reading constantly that anyone else in my position would quit seriously makes me wonder what the hell I’m still doing here…thanks
Anyone who tells you that working a soul-crushing job is the “right thing” is full of shit.
It’s not the right thing no matter how much money you have. It’s something that some people have to do in order to have money.
If you want the job, that’s another story. By all means do it. But taking a soul-crushing job isn’t the right thing, just like sleeping in a homeless shelter isn’t the right thing. They’re both just things that some people have to do at some points in their lives.
There’s no good reason to sleep in a homeless shelter if you can afford to live in a home, and, in fact, you might be taking a spot from a real homeless person who would end up on the street.
Anyone who tells you that working a soul-crushing job is the “right” thing even when you don’t need it is stupid.
I really liked your point of view on this. It makes me think of my old self. The kid that was always told to go to school, choose academic courses, go to university, become a dentist and make decent money.
I didn’t become a dentist because it wasn’t something I could go to school 8 years for.
Even though my parents never encouraged me to pursue art, the first thing I learned to do with a pencil was to draw, not to write. My mom loved to draw with us and I loved her little drawings of people with their cute sleepy eyes and curls.
When I think of drawing and the memories I have of drawing for other people makes my heart sing(I know corny right?).
I think of people who take night courses after work so that they can better their station in life. They make a goal, they are determined to reach their goal and they do it, despite not having the time.
I currently work at a job that gives me no satisfaction in my life. I appreciate this job as it helps pay the bills, but it doesn’t inspire me in any way. I know there are people out there who go to a job they love and I think to myself, I want that too! Therefore, I have decided to pursue this just as someone would pursue going to night school.
Everyone has their excuse, or their alibi as Napoleon Hill would call it, as to why they never succeeded in reaching their goals. When they fail, they tell others that they too will fail and if someone does make a career from it, that person isn’t really that successful, they’re just snooty and aren’t real artists like Picasso.
Who cares if YOU don’t think they’re Picasso, because someone out there obviously does, otherwise they wouldn’t be making a living from it (and as an aside, only some people would call Picasso great, not everyone has a taste for his style. I also understand that some people do love his stuff and would call him great).
I’ve pursued things (non-artistic endeavors) and have given up on them too, but when I look back on them, I realize it was because I did not LOVE what I was doing. I had no desire and therefore I lacked the drive and determination to pursue them.
One of the major contributors of failure, is not loving what you do. If you live, breath, dream and fill your every waking moment with a desire to achieve that which you desire, whether that be an art career of any kind or even if it’s as practical as becoming a dentist, I think that you can achieve that dream as long as you act upon it (even if that means having another job on the side that feeds and clothes you).
No one is ever a master at their craft, you must always learn and grow. Learn how to become better at your art and how to become better at selling yourself. Use your creative talents you were born with to think creatively, not only for your artwork but for the career/business side of it.
What made Michael Jordan a great basketball player wasn’t some magical gift given to him at birth, he was great because he never gave up, never stopped trying and loved what he did.
Please, I beg people to read this article with care and not to take it too much to heart. Believe in yourself, never give up, learn from your failures, ask for help. You can be whatever you believe you are. You will become someone’s Picasso, wherever that someone is. This is the internet after all :)
Penelope So Bitter…why? You didn’t/couldn’t fully commit or make the quality/quantity required?
The more time and energy put towards art, the better the product. It’s a straight up linear relationship yo.
Don’t hate on people who wrangle a full time art career and had the balls to do it.
Peace.
Some others have touched upon the points that I want to make, but maybe my own comments will prove helpful.
– The sex/art comparison is way off. Maybe the act of creating has comparisons, but the production is much more involved.
Maybe if you want to make the comparison to actually ‘winning’ a spouse and the ‘reward’ of the honeymoon? THAT has more in common with putting out an album, portfolio, or book.
– If having the ‘free’ time available from going ‘pro’ does not make you a better artist it is simply because you either developed your skills to their fullest potential in a time when you had no adult demands on you or over a very long period of time, or you are lazy and likely have little skill and are working off talent alone.
– The artist create no matter what point is only sort of true. I think people with the creative bent (I actually hate the narrowness of the term ‘artist’) will always create, but without the right conditions will not be doing it in their chosen medium. It may be in the boardroom or even the bedroom, but most of us want to produce something that has a life outside ourselves and for most that requires dedicated time, money, energy that is not always there. We are no necessarily less creative during those phases.
Some skills are easy to develop while doing other things, but playing an instrument or sculpting take practice just to maintain the skills required to even begin creating, let alone to improve and thus, express yourself better.
I learned to sing working construction jobs and writing/thinking can happen in any job that doesn’t consume all of you mind, but playing bass and guitar, learning to record, and writing songs at any decent level takes dedicated time and energy that was not available to me. Yes I wrote some decent songs and could play better than average, but the time frame was sadly slow.
Anyone is capable of making a living out of doing pretty much anything they can imagine and wish for, as long as they put in the grunt work and actually go after it. Happens time and time again, all over the place, all around the world. You are only limited by your own inner drive, and the excuses you choose to make for yourself. Make art. Sell art. Rinse and Repeat. There are systems in place, and people willing to buy. Excuses for why its not happening are just that, excuses and if you choose to believe your excuses, and allow that to happen, then you will cry about why its not happening. Everyone has a sob story about why something didn’t happen. Its the great artists who choose to not to tell those sob stories, who actually make something of their lives. Thanks, now I have something to post for my daily writing excerpt, and I can go to work on that art commission I just acquired earlier in the week.
I think this is bullshit. the way you say it makes art sound like a disability or disease. You say we are forced to make art, or we need to. But that’s not how it works, I love making art in all forms, but i don’t need to do it all the time. In fact if you need to make art all the time then maybe you have a problem, get checked out. I may not be a well known artist but why dose that matter, truthfully if you are starving, well yea get a job. But still even while starving you can still make art, but it may not be made the same way as it usually would be. Yes sometimes an artist has the unmistakable urge to make some form of art. But they don’t need to have something made on an annual basis. Art has a mood and a feel to it. If you just pop out are one after another then you are not an artist, you just happen to be good at; drawing, painting, sculpting, so on and so forth. Real artists work hard on there art, also this is a personal opinion, but to me art isn’t a good painting or drawing, but art is the ability to put yourself into your art.
Great and highly practical post. Thank you for the honest and again, very practical advice. I found this to be a great help, and you are a great writer. Write a book, I would read it.
Love, love, love this article your writing. So true. I need to get on with it and stop making excuses!