7 Damaging Myths about Being an Artist (and a reality check)
I had fun this afternoon, making some little illustrations about some of the common myths we hear about being an artist.
Perhaps they come from our parents, or our society of yester-year but let’s look at them, in no particular order with a todays eye-view.
Artists are Selfish
I love this one. Perhaps a hangover from The Bloomsbury Set (1905-12) when a group of artists and writers moved themselves in a beautiful country house, had plenty of sex and made art to their hearts’ content. Wider society saw them as outlaws, non-conformists and threatening bohemians.
Without a doubt, artists need time and quiet to make their work but are they selfish? Not today, It’s not an option. We have to make our work around the washing up that needs doing, part-time jobs that supplement our income as we get ourselves started. Artists are grafters.
2. Every Piece Must Be A Masterpiece
Sadly not. It’s not possible that each work is a breakthrough piece. These happen all by themselves and cannot be planned for. During my thirty years of making art, I’ve probably made about 8 masterworks of the thousands that have left my studio. A masterwork is a work that moves us onto a new direction, is beautifully executed to the best of our abilities, these can’t be planned for or we simply set ourselves up to fail everytime. Our job as artists is to simply make, as we do, we get better. The Masterworks happen all by themselves, few and very far between.
3. There Are Already Too Many Artists Out There
Ah yes, this old chestnut, It’s true, there are a gigantic number of artists out there, but only one single ever one of you - with your eyes and your hand that paints. Never forget this. If not you - then who?
4. Artists Will Always Be Broke
Poor old Van Gogh. He had no internet, no portal to the wider world from which to learn and share his work. His was a tough art world to crack. Not so today fellow artists. With time and intention, we can bring about a community around our work that both buys and supports us through all our incarnations of artistry over our careers. Money will ebb and flow without a doubt, but with a bit of planning and the continuation of our making work, showing it and selling it, there is no reason that artists need be broke all the time anymore thank-you-very-much.
5. You Will Never Have a Home
This may well have been true up to even a few decades ago when all the mortgage companies wanted us to be civil servants and have 9-5pm jobs. Thankfully today, they are much more with the programme and understanding of self-employment and multi-income careers. It’s important to keep your books up to date and your past three years of income don’t need to be huge, just consistant. Don’t forget, an income of £15k can get you up to £60 or £65k of mortgage, coupled with a partner that’s a significant chunk.
6. Being An Artist With Children Is A Nightmare
Raising a family is where artists can actually thrive, truly, I mean it. As hard as it is (of course) there is time around your young ones to make work - even if it’s in 4 minute chunks of time a day. Our work adapts to our time limits and often encourages us to work in ways we may not have entertained before. When my children were tiny, I had enough time at my drawing board to make a single line drawing, before Bob The Builder was over. These time limits led to my drawing hand to becoming my primary earner, which led to many sales of single line art prints of animals. We never know where our work will go if we allow ourselves to respond to our current scenarios without resenting them. Like I say, not easy but doable I promise.
7. You Will Never Have ‘Enough’
I really enjoy thinking about my ‘enough’. What does it look like? How will I know when I have ‘enough?’ Without giving some time to this we set ourselves on a continual button lift of going up - but never knowing where too. Identifying your ‘Enough’ is a beautiful thing. I know that my enough allows me to keep making, paying all my bills and having some left over for fun. That’s my lot - spend a little time thinking about yours. Once we make friends with it, you may well find you are, pretty much, already there.
If you say you are an artist at a party, there are always comments, statements, interest and liberal swathes of generic brushes heading our way! What people don’t quite understand yet however is how much our industry has moved on.
The tools we have at hand today, could once have only be dreamt about. Print on Demand, online exposure, client dedication, patreon websites are the stuff of dreams - when I started out my career in the mid 1990s we didn’t even have the internet (I know, right?!). Still, we made our money, and our worlds still went around.
There is so much room in our world for your art and your work.
I wish you all the love, goodwill, and support imaginable.
Much love
Sam x
