This is a good read. Any creative field that a lot of people wish to join seems to attract the shamelss vultures, exploitative employers, and pricey adjacent industries happy to cash in on selling you the dream. Once you've been burned out on it, another younger dreamer comes along to take your place.
Photoshop now costs me nearly $40 per month, visual art supplies are ludicrously expensive, the video game industry is the most exploitative in tech, the movie and music industries have always been ripe with abuse, and writers have always been milked by dodgy pay-to-publish rackets and other schemes.
Honestly I think the best approach is probably to make a living doing something boring but not too intensive, and try to pursue creative ventures on the side, without a profit motive. Maybe profit will come one day, maybe it won't, but at least you can do your art on your own terms. Of course, these days finding any sort of day job that doesn't suck away all your time and energy is getting harder and harder. It is depressing.
Art supplies are insanely expensive. I have purposely built my practice over ever cheaper and cheaper materials. Right now I'm literally just drawing with mechanical pencils that cost, like, 2$ at Staples. I do buy proper paper, smooth Bristol, but like a whole pad is 20$ and considering the insane detail I try to shove into every drawing a pad can last me 5 years I think hahah.
I had a period when I was doing that 'ooh maybe if I got that brush, if I got those watercolors' phase but then I realized it makes no sense.
On the programs I am walking away from Adobe slowly. I stuck with them through many annoyances but the new 'everything you make with our programs can train our AI' nonsense is a step too far, along with the ever more predatory subscription system. I got Affinity (single payment FOR NOW, we will see how it goes) and Gimp which is free, and honestly from what little experimentation I've done so far, both can open my large files and seem to have pretty much all the functionality I need. Relearning everything will be a bitch but I think worth it in the long run.
Yes, all the industries that employ artists have realized we WANT to do this work and are not shy about exploiting that fact. It's really sad. I did the 'day job plus art' thing and I think I was doing it wrong because I ended up with like heart palpitations etc from not sleeping (day job, then kid and family, then drawing at night, I was rolling on like 3 hrs of sleep and it caught up with me hahah). I am still fishing around for the perfect setup. Will report back if I find it!
Really good article. I think part of it is our social values, which haven't changed much. We idolize would-be Rockefellers but we think would-be Monets are stilly, delusional and naive. We cheer on those who are hustling, killing it, etc. but not those who go quietly about their work.
Our culture's always been that way for a whole lot of complicated reasons, but I think in part it's due to metrics. Publishing 5 stories, 1 reel, 1 post and leaving 20 comments a day to promote your course feels like productivity and progress. You can look at the list and see the boxes ticked off. How do you measure artistic progress? It's a lot less satisfying and there's no social incentive, so I guess that means we'll just go selling our courses.
Artistic endeavors take a lot more emotional maturity and long-term thinking than course-selling. It's more rewarding, but in the short-term that can be hard to see, I think.
I think you’re hitting on a hugely important point here. Most of society views artists as deluded weird airheads UNTIL they make it big. Because it’s monetary success that gives you respectability. A starving loner who makes incredible pieces would still be viewed as weird and probably a bit sad, a guy who makes blank canvases with a single squiggle is viewed as a great artist if he is selling his squiggles for millions.
And we end up trapped inbetween. We want to be weirdy little quiet creative people but we still want to eat, and have enough for rent, and maybe even be admired and respected a little. And that’s where the spider webs are :)
Yeah, as you can see on Substack there's a ton of this in the writing sphere, too. It seems like there's a lot more people making money promising to teach others how to make money doing X or Y creative thing than there are people making money actually doing X or Y creative thing. It gets weirdly meta when you notice that a lot of the people selling coaching/classes' credentials are books on how to make money doing X or Y creative thing rather than actually having great success doing X or Y creative thing. Maybe because if they were the latter, they'd be off doing that instead of trying to make money teaching others to make money doing it. But I think there's an underlying systemic challenge at the base of this, which is that it's just really hard to make a living doing the Arts; people don't value it highly enough relative to everything else they spend time/money on for there to be enough willingness to pay for it to support more creatives at a living wage or better. But a lot of people would like to be able to support themselves doing the Arts.
Yes, absolutely. It's pretty weird when you realize we thought we were creators but we're actually consumers - consumers of 'tips and secrets' on how to create profitably.
It's also true that social media is a grifter's paradise. It's all about 'messaging' and 'leveraging' and 'pain points' and 'engagement'. And words are cheap, anyone can say 'hey, I made seven million dollars last week, wanna know how?'
I always remember that guy who literally became a millionaire by asking people to give him a dollar in exchange for revealing to them the secret of how to become a millionaire. And they would give him the dollar and he'd say 'do what I'm doing.'
I know exactly how you feel. It's hard too...being taken advantage of. I have been taken for a ride so many times that some things business wise are really just not as interesting to me anymore. I simply continue to do some because I know that in the long run they could help me to pay the bills. Some situations in life teach you or help you to harden your heart. Not to everyone but to alot in order to protect yourself. I don't know if I'm wording that correctly. I grew up in the theatre though and didn't have an interest in the visual arts until in my 20's... Due to a health situation, I was told to try painting and my life seemed to change it's course. I interviewed people, had my own magazine, etc. but all for free because that is what I learned growing up. I was told that money was evil. Sadly, I knew nothing at all about making money from art due to that. My parents got me into art but never seemed to want me to make a living from it. Due to my health, etc. that went right over my head. I've had loads of exhibitions over the years, etc. and you'd think I were rich but like you said we artist's are easily taken advantage of. I was lucky if three people showed up to many of my exhibitions because although I knew LOADS of people in the arts, that fact did not invite them to those exhibitions. If they weren't invited, they wouldn't know and if they didn't know, they couldn't support my dreams as I supported theirs for years. Nobody invited others due to being proud of me, etc. and again my parents always told me that money was evil. The fact is though, money pays the bills and with medical bills as well, I have alot of bills to pay! Due to that adding on those health issues and well...all my stores had to be taken down, I can't even add a credit card here on Substack and have changed my credit card at least three times due to fraudulent charges! Contacting some people is fine, where as contacting others is almost IMPOSSIBLE! It's almost as if someone nolonger wants me to have the freedom to choose. When in reality I have always had less of an option to choose. I just push on anyway, like Bob Fosse, Frida Kahlo etc. Personally, I know that I can but I also know that I can think of not trying anylonger. I can think that every artist will screw me over but where exactly will that get me? I've spent my life in the arts...mostly in the visual arts now. How can I give that up? It's has become a part of who I am as a person.. I've had people who I grew up with since 15yrs in the arts take advantage of me and that REALLY hurts but I know they are not the only people in the arts. I won't give them that power.... I hope that you know those who have taken advantage of you are NOT the only people in the arts. There ARE still good ones...somewhere. You can't find them if you choose to give up and not look. The one thing that will always be mine is my art. Your art will ALWAYS, ALWAYS be yours and that's one thing that NOBODY can ever take away from you. The business side of it will happen and I've got to believe that because I won't allow anyone who has taken advantage to take that from me. I hope that you believe that too. Some people have taken enough. Anyway, great post... I hope that you don't let the haters stop you from following your dreams. Many of those REALLY RICH people in the arts were poor or middle class in the past. If they could do it, why can't we?
That's a great point, that there used to be this strong line of thinking (and it's still alive in some circles) that Art is only ever done for Love, and if you are making money from it you're 'doing it wrong', 'not a real artist', 'have sold out', etc etc. It's very silly. Like what are we supposed to eat.
The number of times someone had offered me to do a project but didn't have a budget for it, and counted on my 'love of art' to make me take it, is insane. Like nobody would do that to any other profession. I wouldn't walk into a bakery and go 'hey, you guys look like you love baking, how about you bake me a cake for free.' It's nuts.
We definitely need to find the balance between actually earning a living from art, earning a living from other things, or just reducing our expenses and finding ways to live the life we really want. And the art world is unpredictable, so you never know, we really might make it!
Another interesting thing is how many friends will be like 'hey you're my friend draw me something for free' instead of being like 'hey you're my friend so I want to pay for your work to support your art'. The first time a friend insisted she pay for an art print I was so moved. It always feels awkward to charge friends, but if you're friends with artists there's no better way to support them than to buy and share their work....
I have literally taken ALL the courses. All of them. There should probably be an ACAA (Art Course Addicts Anonymous) and I should really really join. I was supposed to not sign up to any at all this year. And just concentrate on SENDING WORK OUT. I made a promise to myself. But I signed up to one pretty much before the end of the first week of January. And another not that long ago. But two in one year is actually really substantial cutting back for me.
I talk myself into the fact that it's because I'm so busy and it helps me focus on creating or doing something, and it does to an extent.
I have taken to hiding certain people and brands, to try to stop being shown the ads. Though, I'm also looking at social media less and less, which is the best way to avoid it.
Having taken ALL of the course, I can say that the most useful of them have always been those run/created by actual illustrators/designers/artists. People who know what they would have found useful a decade or so before and are sharing that. People who love teaching and giving feedback and sharing their insights, but who also continue to work in the industry. And pretty much none of them are promising untold wealth, in fact most of them are very honest about money.
Next year. Next year I won't take any more. Promise.
Thank you for sharing that! ❤️ Yes I know a few other people who have taken all of them, or at least signed up for all and then left most unfinished. The ads definitely prey on our dreams. I still find it so hard every time I look at one of those ‘Do you want to make five figures a month selling art prints? Let us teach you how!!!’ to not wonder if they’re secretly the ones who actually know something hahah. We must stay strong ⭐️
When I was a visual artist people sometimes commissioned me, but in the end I swore off commissions because they were extremely stressful and frequently involved insulting scenarios
So often. No private commission has ever gone well for me… Sometimes it isn’t even that the people mean you harm, it’s just they have no idea how to work with an artist. So their expectations are way out of place and educating them ends up being a whole other job we never signed up for (and it pays nothing lol)
This is a good read. Any creative field that a lot of people wish to join seems to attract the shamelss vultures, exploitative employers, and pricey adjacent industries happy to cash in on selling you the dream. Once you've been burned out on it, another younger dreamer comes along to take your place.
Photoshop now costs me nearly $40 per month, visual art supplies are ludicrously expensive, the video game industry is the most exploitative in tech, the movie and music industries have always been ripe with abuse, and writers have always been milked by dodgy pay-to-publish rackets and other schemes.
Honestly I think the best approach is probably to make a living doing something boring but not too intensive, and try to pursue creative ventures on the side, without a profit motive. Maybe profit will come one day, maybe it won't, but at least you can do your art on your own terms. Of course, these days finding any sort of day job that doesn't suck away all your time and energy is getting harder and harder. It is depressing.
Art supplies are insanely expensive. I have purposely built my practice over ever cheaper and cheaper materials. Right now I'm literally just drawing with mechanical pencils that cost, like, 2$ at Staples. I do buy proper paper, smooth Bristol, but like a whole pad is 20$ and considering the insane detail I try to shove into every drawing a pad can last me 5 years I think hahah.
I had a period when I was doing that 'ooh maybe if I got that brush, if I got those watercolors' phase but then I realized it makes no sense.
On the programs I am walking away from Adobe slowly. I stuck with them through many annoyances but the new 'everything you make with our programs can train our AI' nonsense is a step too far, along with the ever more predatory subscription system. I got Affinity (single payment FOR NOW, we will see how it goes) and Gimp which is free, and honestly from what little experimentation I've done so far, both can open my large files and seem to have pretty much all the functionality I need. Relearning everything will be a bitch but I think worth it in the long run.
Yes, all the industries that employ artists have realized we WANT to do this work and are not shy about exploiting that fact. It's really sad. I did the 'day job plus art' thing and I think I was doing it wrong because I ended up with like heart palpitations etc from not sleeping (day job, then kid and family, then drawing at night, I was rolling on like 3 hrs of sleep and it caught up with me hahah). I am still fishing around for the perfect setup. Will report back if I find it!
The first sentence alone I went OMG im glad it’s not just me!!!!!!!
hahahaha no no they're descending on everyone like locusts I swear :)
instagram capturing all of our data and targeting ads has not been cute lol
Do you have that thing where you casually mention something to someone in conversation and three minutes later there's an ad and you're like (ó﹏ò｡)
Every.single.time!
It’s bloody spooky 😅
Really good article. I think part of it is our social values, which haven't changed much. We idolize would-be Rockefellers but we think would-be Monets are stilly, delusional and naive. We cheer on those who are hustling, killing it, etc. but not those who go quietly about their work.
Our culture's always been that way for a whole lot of complicated reasons, but I think in part it's due to metrics. Publishing 5 stories, 1 reel, 1 post and leaving 20 comments a day to promote your course feels like productivity and progress. You can look at the list and see the boxes ticked off. How do you measure artistic progress? It's a lot less satisfying and there's no social incentive, so I guess that means we'll just go selling our courses.
Artistic endeavors take a lot more emotional maturity and long-term thinking than course-selling. It's more rewarding, but in the short-term that can be hard to see, I think.
I think you’re hitting on a hugely important point here. Most of society views artists as deluded weird airheads UNTIL they make it big. Because it’s monetary success that gives you respectability. A starving loner who makes incredible pieces would still be viewed as weird and probably a bit sad, a guy who makes blank canvases with a single squiggle is viewed as a great artist if he is selling his squiggles for millions.
And we end up trapped inbetween. We want to be weirdy little quiet creative people but we still want to eat, and have enough for rent, and maybe even be admired and respected a little. And that’s where the spider webs are :)
Loved reading about your journey. Big “ughh” to all those ads and vultures, agreed!
Yeah, as you can see on Substack there's a ton of this in the writing sphere, too. It seems like there's a lot more people making money promising to teach others how to make money doing X or Y creative thing than there are people making money actually doing X or Y creative thing. It gets weirdly meta when you notice that a lot of the people selling coaching/classes' credentials are books on how to make money doing X or Y creative thing rather than actually having great success doing X or Y creative thing. Maybe because if they were the latter, they'd be off doing that instead of trying to make money teaching others to make money doing it. But I think there's an underlying systemic challenge at the base of this, which is that it's just really hard to make a living doing the Arts; people don't value it highly enough relative to everything else they spend time/money on for there to be enough willingness to pay for it to support more creatives at a living wage or better. But a lot of people would like to be able to support themselves doing the Arts.
Yes, absolutely. It's pretty weird when you realize we thought we were creators but we're actually consumers - consumers of 'tips and secrets' on how to create profitably.
It's also true that social media is a grifter's paradise. It's all about 'messaging' and 'leveraging' and 'pain points' and 'engagement'. And words are cheap, anyone can say 'hey, I made seven million dollars last week, wanna know how?'
I always remember that guy who literally became a millionaire by asking people to give him a dollar in exchange for revealing to them the secret of how to become a millionaire. And they would give him the dollar and he'd say 'do what I'm doing.'
I know exactly how you feel. It's hard too...being taken advantage of. I have been taken for a ride so many times that some things business wise are really just not as interesting to me anymore. I simply continue to do some because I know that in the long run they could help me to pay the bills. Some situations in life teach you or help you to harden your heart. Not to everyone but to alot in order to protect yourself. I don't know if I'm wording that correctly. I grew up in the theatre though and didn't have an interest in the visual arts until in my 20's... Due to a health situation, I was told to try painting and my life seemed to change it's course. I interviewed people, had my own magazine, etc. but all for free because that is what I learned growing up. I was told that money was evil. Sadly, I knew nothing at all about making money from art due to that. My parents got me into art but never seemed to want me to make a living from it. Due to my health, etc. that went right over my head. I've had loads of exhibitions over the years, etc. and you'd think I were rich but like you said we artist's are easily taken advantage of. I was lucky if three people showed up to many of my exhibitions because although I knew LOADS of people in the arts, that fact did not invite them to those exhibitions. If they weren't invited, they wouldn't know and if they didn't know, they couldn't support my dreams as I supported theirs for years. Nobody invited others due to being proud of me, etc. and again my parents always told me that money was evil. The fact is though, money pays the bills and with medical bills as well, I have alot of bills to pay! Due to that adding on those health issues and well...all my stores had to be taken down, I can't even add a credit card here on Substack and have changed my credit card at least three times due to fraudulent charges! Contacting some people is fine, where as contacting others is almost IMPOSSIBLE! It's almost as if someone nolonger wants me to have the freedom to choose. When in reality I have always had less of an option to choose. I just push on anyway, like Bob Fosse, Frida Kahlo etc. Personally, I know that I can but I also know that I can think of not trying anylonger. I can think that every artist will screw me over but where exactly will that get me? I've spent my life in the arts...mostly in the visual arts now. How can I give that up? It's has become a part of who I am as a person.. I've had people who I grew up with since 15yrs in the arts take advantage of me and that REALLY hurts but I know they are not the only people in the arts. I won't give them that power.... I hope that you know those who have taken advantage of you are NOT the only people in the arts. There ARE still good ones...somewhere. You can't find them if you choose to give up and not look. The one thing that will always be mine is my art. Your art will ALWAYS, ALWAYS be yours and that's one thing that NOBODY can ever take away from you. The business side of it will happen and I've got to believe that because I won't allow anyone who has taken advantage to take that from me. I hope that you believe that too. Some people have taken enough. Anyway, great post... I hope that you don't let the haters stop you from following your dreams. Many of those REALLY RICH people in the arts were poor or middle class in the past. If they could do it, why can't we?
That's a great point, that there used to be this strong line of thinking (and it's still alive in some circles) that Art is only ever done for Love, and if you are making money from it you're 'doing it wrong', 'not a real artist', 'have sold out', etc etc. It's very silly. Like what are we supposed to eat.
The number of times someone had offered me to do a project but didn't have a budget for it, and counted on my 'love of art' to make me take it, is insane. Like nobody would do that to any other profession. I wouldn't walk into a bakery and go 'hey, you guys look like you love baking, how about you bake me a cake for free.' It's nuts.
We definitely need to find the balance between actually earning a living from art, earning a living from other things, or just reducing our expenses and finding ways to live the life we really want. And the art world is unpredictable, so you never know, we really might make it!
Another interesting thing is how many friends will be like 'hey you're my friend draw me something for free' instead of being like 'hey you're my friend so I want to pay for your work to support your art'. The first time a friend insisted she pay for an art print I was so moved. It always feels awkward to charge friends, but if you're friends with artists there's no better way to support them than to buy and share their work....
I have literally taken ALL the courses. All of them. There should probably be an ACAA (Art Course Addicts Anonymous) and I should really really join. I was supposed to not sign up to any at all this year. And just concentrate on SENDING WORK OUT. I made a promise to myself. But I signed up to one pretty much before the end of the first week of January. And another not that long ago. But two in one year is actually really substantial cutting back for me.
I talk myself into the fact that it's because I'm so busy and it helps me focus on creating or doing something, and it does to an extent.
I have taken to hiding certain people and brands, to try to stop being shown the ads. Though, I'm also looking at social media less and less, which is the best way to avoid it.
Having taken ALL of the course, I can say that the most useful of them have always been those run/created by actual illustrators/designers/artists. People who know what they would have found useful a decade or so before and are sharing that. People who love teaching and giving feedback and sharing their insights, but who also continue to work in the industry. And pretty much none of them are promising untold wealth, in fact most of them are very honest about money.
Next year. Next year I won't take any more. Promise.
Thank you for sharing that! ❤️ Yes I know a few other people who have taken all of them, or at least signed up for all and then left most unfinished. The ads definitely prey on our dreams. I still find it so hard every time I look at one of those ‘Do you want to make five figures a month selling art prints? Let us teach you how!!!’ to not wonder if they’re secretly the ones who actually know something hahah. We must stay strong ⭐️
When I was a visual artist people sometimes commissioned me, but in the end I swore off commissions because they were extremely stressful and frequently involved insulting scenarios
So often. No private commission has ever gone well for me… Sometimes it isn’t even that the people mean you harm, it’s just they have no idea how to work with an artist. So their expectations are way out of place and educating them ends up being a whole other job we never signed up for (and it pays nothing lol)
I’m in 🙋🏾♀️. What else have I to do? This is me.
We stick together and remind each other these people are not looking out for our interests 😣