Please Stop Telling Me I Don't Need Success
The intention is good but the point is missed
So a very common piece of advice given to artists of any kind is ‘don’t let others define your success.’
Don’t attach your value as an artist to a number. It doesn’t matter how many clients or followers you have. Who cares about your Instagram stats. You are the only one who gets to define your artistic worth!
This, of course, sounds extremely wholesome and uplifting - until you try to imagine the same advice being given to absolutely anyone else who sells a service or a product. ‘Don’t let your lack of paying customers define your self-worth as a restaurateur! You are the only one who gets to define if there really was salmonella in that chicken you used for Chicken Alfredo yesterday. Reclaim your own worth!’
Obviously I jest, but only a little.
The fact is that we seem to often be given advice to not look to others for validation, as if we are somehow, as artists, perpetually hungry for validation without any particular reason. As if that thirst stems from insecurity, or vanity. Maybe both? ….Probably both. ‘You don’t have to be on all the social media! It doesn’t matter if you have a large following!’ ….Except it sort of does, Jimothy. I’m not shooting reels because I’ve discovered a new passion for short-format film making. I’m not trying to work the algorithm because I have dreams of being adored by millions.
I just want to make money selling art.
The fact is that selling art doesn’t have a very standard path. The number of full time artist jobs is extremely small, and virtually NONE of them involve drawing what YOU want. So if you want to follow your creative vision and somehow make money from that, you better rustle up an audience for yourself.
Now social media has definitely made that process easier, but also, like, infinitely harder. Yep, you can now broadcast your stuff to everyone on the planet, but guess what - so can everyone else. Every person out there who is shopping for prints or looking to commission someone to draw something for them literally has their pick of THE - ENTIRE - FUCKING - WORLD. Pressure much? Yeah, some.
Ok, but still, you don’t need a huge fanbase to make money from art, right? Like, how many prints do you need to sell?
Well conversion rate is also a thing. Out of all the people who see your posts on social media, how many will decide to follow? A fraction, right? Then of that fraction, how many will eventually actually buy something? A fraction of a fraction. You need a LOT of exposure in order to get people even a little interested. And you’re not just competing with all the other artists - you’re competing with every catchy little interest-trap out there - anything that can get them to scroll off into the distance before they’ve even considered making any meaningful connection to your stuff. I’m talking TikTok dances, random pranks, political posts, beauty tips, endless made up AITA stories set to weird Minecraft parkour videos, slime squishing, moon sand slicing, cupcake decorating, or soap cutting videos - literally the entire glut of human creation, at all its levels.
Capturing attention is becoming a hyper-science.
‘Well, you can just make art for yourself! It doesn’t have to actually be your day job!’
It doesn’t. Many artists in all sorts of artistic fields have supported their art careers by doing other, less rewarding work in exchange for that ever-necessary paycheck. There is nothing wrong with this of course, it doesn’t make their art less amazing.
But it does objectively make it far harder for them to create.
Depending on your style and your field, you may be able to slip your art in between your day gig, your meal prep, your gym time and your kids. Maybe that works for you. I am genuinely happy for you if it does. For me, and my ludicrously time-consuming intense and detail-heavy drawing style, having an ‘actual job’ would be art death.
I know because I have tried.
When I first started drawing, I was working in corporate. I had long days, meetings, business trips, a big salary - the works. Obviously I wasn’t going to drop it all at the first inkling of creative inspiration, so I spent years working during the day, doing house and family stuff in the evenings, and drawing at night.
Notice anything wrong with that picture?
Yeah.
I didn’t really sleep. My schedule was get up at 7:00 am, get the kid to daycare, go to work, come back around 17:00, do family things till around 20:00, put the kid to sleep, wrap up whatever was left around the house, and draw between 22:00 and 02:00. Fall asleep realistically around 03:00, get up at 07:00 again.
I lasted around 3 years, then suddenly developed heart palpitations. The cardiologist couldn’t find anything wrong with my heart (‘one of the most beautiful I’ve seen’, he said) but I immediately knew what was wrong. It was just too much.
I tried to draw in shorter stints, but for me personally it just proved impossible. As an avid ADHD enjoyer I need time for my transitions. I need time to wrap my head around what I’m planning to do, get into the flow, figure out my materials and references, and once I’m flowing it’s extremely hard to stop. Just a little more. This part is almost done. It’s so satisfying to see it coming together. And then it’s 02:00 again.
When we emigrated to Canada I quit my ‘real’ job, and decided to not look for another one. I wanted to really give this art thing a fair go. The first few years it was going really well - then the pandemic hit, and my client roster has never really recovered since.
So if I am trying to gain visibility, or find new places to reach people, or figuring out what sort of content to make in order to get people to notice me on social media, I’m not doing it for some deep seated artistic insecurity reasons. (Not saying those aren’t there, hahah. Just that they’re not motivating enough to get me to record reels). I’m literally trying to save my right to make art. My art takes time, and that time is something I know I will not have if I have to get a regular job again.
So I don’t really need to be reminded that I am the measure of my own artistic worth.
I need other people to be the measure of it, so that it may continue to exist.
N.B. To anyone who would here be prompted to say ‘well that’s not anyone else’s problem - if you can’t hack it as an artist you should clearly go and do something else - yes, thank you, I agree and absolutely accept that fact. That’s not what the text is about. I am not expecting anyone to support artists just for the sake of letting us have our dreamy arty lives. I AM, however, hoping people understand that IF they want artists to be able to do what we do, IF they feel joy from seeing our work, IF they are excited to see what we come up with next - they must also understand that we have to fight like crazy for the space and time to do what we do. Do with that what feels right.
I feel all of this deeply, especially as a person who writes the kind of work you’re talking about. You’ve illustrated perfectly the pitfalls of these kinda of sentiments about the artist and money. It’s always in the back of my head when I’m writing. I know the type of world I’m writing about is quite idealized, but it’s rooted in my very real world experiences of not having any of the time or resources to make art, to somehow ending up in a position with a lot more time and resources to pursue my creative aspirations.
My vantage point comes from years of working in intensive social service positions, working 7-3am in less than safe conditions (to say the least.) I worked full time. I was enrolled college full time. Art was a private, burning desire that always felt out of reach. I was lucky enough, eventually, to find remote work that paid well enough and had enough downtime to pursue creative interests on the clock. I became stably housed after years of moving around constantly. It took several years of making art that was trying to appeal to an algorithm until I finally arrived at a “fuck it” moment where I decided to be selfish with my art. To be fully committed to making what was interesting to me. I was only able to arrive at this moment because certain conditions aligned for me to be safe and comfortable enough to cultivate an inner world.
If the artist is working around the clock to appeal to an algorithm, they are not working to nurture their own imagination, and they can’t stay true to their unique personal vision.
But, yes, I would still like to make money. I would like for my art to somehow provide more upward mobility for me. But how do I do that while continuing to explore what feels authentic to me?
Sorry to be long winded here. This stirred up a lot of thoughts for me! I always love reading your perspectives !
I want to print out this piece of writing and shove it down the throats of people who say art can happen in my spare time. Or maybe tattoo every single letter of it on their faces.