Starting Your Career as an Artist by Angie Wojak & Stacy Miller

Author:Angie Wojak & Stacy Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allworth
Published: 2014-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

JOBS: EARNING INCOME AND SUPPORTING YOUR ART

One of the greatest challenges that artists face is finding a way to earn enough money to live while still having the time and freedom to do their art. There is a commonly held stigma that artists who earn their living from something other than their art are not successful. Many artists assume that they are failures if they have to take a job and don’t earn their income directly from their art. But the reality is that most artists don’t make their money solely from their art, especially at the outset of their careers. It often takes many years for artists to reach a point in their career where they can earn their living primarily from their art. In fact, the majority of artists earn their income from a combination of a job in addition to their art.

Brynna Tucker, an artist and associate director of Career Services at Pratt Institute, says, “Professional development for fine artists is a very tricky thing to teach. For one, a fine artist needs to spend uninterrupted time in the studio to push ideas, techniques, and focus on their work. Discipline in the studio is the core of developing as an artist. But making the work is only part of it. It’s a two-prong process, the second part being getting the work out there. The most pressing professional development issue for a beginning fine artist is to recognize that their studio practice and the work they do to get their work out there are not likely to generate income. Eventually it will, but starting out it is not as likely. This means that most emerging artists need a third part, an income source. Juggling your studio practice, the work you put in to applying for opportunities to get your work out there, and a day job is not an easy. What compounds this issue is that art school isn’t cheap and loans are a real factor for artists.”

Artists may consider the subject of money to be distasteful and in direct opposition to what they perceive as the purity of their art. They may believe the myth of the starving artist, who is dedicated solely to his or her work, and think that artists shouldn’t have to be concerned with money. But without a stable source of income, artists can spend time and energy struggling to survive, and that detracts from their ability to focus on their art. Think of money as the fuel that will support and enable your artistic practice. You need a work/life balance whereby you make enough money to pay for your living expenses and art practice while providing you with hours that are flexible enough to allow you to focus on your art.

Finding the Right Work/Life Balance

There are many positive aspects to finding the right job that will allow you to sustain your studio practice and may even help grow your professional network, all the while providing income for necessities like housing, food, health care, and other necessities.

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