There is a forever-tension between how an artist acquires money to pay the bills whilst simultaneously developing and furthering an art practice. At the very least, if we want to stay alive, we need food, water, & shelter. Some people need people more than others. Some people need holidays and adventures more than others. What it costs for someone to live will be different for each person but, eventually money must come from somewhere.
Whilst I’d love to say there are myriad ways to achieve this balance, there seems to be only 6 options that aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.
- The commercial freelancer: This person has a personal art practice but brings in money through selling their work. It’s either pre-made work (I made a painting and you can license it or buy the original), work that actually beautifies something else (my art on a mug), or it’s work-on-demand (creating work in response to a brief). This person may also sell art-adjacent services (teaching, workshops etc). The advantage to this type of model is that one can practice the craft of their art (materials, tools etc). The disadvantage is one may end up creatively depleted and it risks taking away from one’s ability to practice for oneself to develop truly personal work because one needs to focus, ultimately, on a customer.
- The part-timer: This person works in an unrelated field (like software engineering) and practices their art in their ‘personal time’ (like after work or on weekends). This is about trying to keep one’s creative energy ‘saved up’ by working in a job that doesn’t use that part of the brain/body so that one can spend it outside of hours. That art practice may or may not be income-generating but, because of the separation between ‘work’ and ‘art’, it’s possible that one increases their chances of a purely personal art exploration because one doesn’t need to worry about the customer.
- The sugar-partner: This person has a partner or significant other that makes enough money to sustain a lifestyle that the artist needs to practice.
- The inheritor: This person lives off a generous inheritance from someone and they use that to fund their existence while they make art.
- The prizewinner: Occasionally, an artist wins an art prize and it provides some income to support their practice (for a while) but often either (1) or (2) is still required.
- The patron/s benefactor: The artist who recieves regular income from people who give you money because they believe in you and they want you to make work (which is distinctly different from being a ‘customer’). These can either be wealthy individuals or many individuals via crowd-sourced micro payments. It’s worth noting though that there is a distinction between true patronage and ‘patronage-for-service’ where an artists ‘trades’ patronage for ‘special access’ to certain services or content.
An artist’s journey may, at different stages, be funded by any one or all of these ways of income-generation in service of their art. As the artist evolves, different priorities emerge or recede. But there is no escaping commerce.
Having spent some time being no. 1 and no. 2, I’m finding that, right now, no. 2 is my preferred path forward.