In Art Careers, As in Life, Choices Can Be Both Daunting and Difficult

Among nearly 500 posts published on Art Print Issues, this one on art careers, originally published in 2010, is poignant and personal for many artists, which has made it very popular. Perhaps it resonates because it comes from my personal experience, and from the heart. You may see a similar reaction when you get poignant and personal in making your art.

When Greatness in Your Art Career Competes with Your Full-time Job

If you are able to successfully work full-time at your art career, you are to be commended. It is not an easy thing to do in the best economic circumstances, much less the pervasive difficult one we are experiencing now.

(Photo by madame.furie, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.)

For certain, each of us comes to embrace a career in the arts in a unique way. For some, success seems to come almost too easy, for others achieving financial independence as an artist seems a distant pipe dream. There also seems to be no set pattern as to how these differences come about.

Be not afraid of greatness; some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them. - William Shakespeare

From my perspective, you could line up the unsigned best works of both very successful artists and other highly talented ones toiling in obscurity, and neither a majority of collectors nor critics would be able to tell you which work belong to either category. If you buy into that theory, then you also must accept that there are intangible, or extenuating factors that mitigate the outcome.

If you have read my book, How to Profit from the Art Print Market, you know I have studied the careers of successful artists in the art print market for years. A major point of the book was to try and distill some common traits that helped fuel their success. Things that were not in common were subject matter, and while all have undeniable artistic skills; none exhibited talent so rare that their work could not be easily replicated by other talented painters.

You see the same thing in music, too. That is, there are innumerable players who can pick up an instrument and play a song as well as the original artist. Just spend some time on YouTube to see what I mean. There are dozens of unknowns who can play and sound like Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton and other iconic guitar players. However, the talent to emulate and replicate is not the same as to create. Therein lies a huge part of the difference between obscurity and success. Other factors, including ambition, timing, geography and luck often play a part in the equation.

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls. - Joseph Campbell

Creativity is more than innate talent. Malcolm Gladwell, in his bestselling book, Outliers: The Story of Success, talks about the 10,000 Hour Rule. He gives examples of The Beatles playing eight hours a day in a Hamburg nightclub, or Bill Gates in a whiling hours upon hours in a computer lab in his early teens, or Tiger Woods on the golf course from a very early age, or some 15-year old violinist appearing on stage at Carnegie Hall. In each of these cases, you find people who have devoted themselves to their passion in ways most of us don't understand.

The example of the teen violinist brings to mind this well told joke:

A man on the streets of Manhattan approaches a stranger and asks, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?”

The stranger thinks for a moment and replies, “Practice, practice, practice.”

It is agreed then that success comes to those who take their innate talent and work very hard at improving what is already above average at the outset. Basically, combining a great work ethic with talent and desire is the key to climbing to the top of your profession. The reality for most of us is life gets in the way.

Making realistic and unselfish decisions that keep us from pursuing our dreams is not necessarily a bad thing.

Although we desire to have the success we feel is possible, we find ourselves strapped to some other reality, like having a growing family, or aging parents, or just needing a steady income to maintain a lifestyle wherein we are most comfortable. Or, maybe we just need the assurance of having affordable health care for us or other family members.

There is no shame in accommodating other needs in your life. It is just the way it is for many of us, me included. It would be fabulous if this blog and a few more books and other projects I have in mind would pay all my bills. In fact, given the time to develop I know they would. The problem comes from the immediate need for a steady income and good health benefits. I am neither able nor willing to trade those for the chance to grow my business faster.

All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure. - Mark Twain

Often times, the ones who crawl to the top are able to ignore the worries of no health insurance or the fact that there is no guarantee of a check in the bank next week. Do you imagine The Beatles had health insurance while toiling away in Hamburg? I am sure they did not. A risk they took as young healthy men perhaps ignorant of the potential for disaster should a medical calamity come their way.

Gary Vaynerchuk, the social media sensation and bestselling author of Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion, a book that offers a primer on how to become successful in your given field using social media as the basis for it, talks about what you need to do to get there when you are already stuck in a full-time job. He looks at a day and says if you are willing to give up the hours from 9 pm to 1 am, you have four hours every day to grow your second business.

I get that idea and resemble the concept. In many ways, it is the business model I have followed for the some years. I work during the day and come home to have a meal, walk the dogs, and spend some time with my wife. Then I get to my other job. That is writing blog posts, editing my book, and working on the other projects at the top of my list.

Though your ambitions may be large, to be successful, keep your list short. - Barney Davey

The one thing I have found useful is I keep my list short for those things getting my attention. It is painful to have to let some things go, or to put them off longer than I wish, but it is the only way to move the dial toward completion on those things I have determined to matter the most to me.

That is not to say I don’t have other plans. I have a huge list of things I want to do. But, the reality of being constrained by time forces me to focus on just a few items. I liken it to triage. I work on those things that are both most likely to advance me towards independence and those things that are most easily achievable to do given my limited time to work on them.

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. - Stephen Covey

If you are a painter, it might mean working on those images that you know will get the fastest and best return on your time investment. That is not to deter you from the massive masterpiece lurking in your mind. You should keep sketches and ideas in a log to maintain your interest, but not give in to spending time on such a project at the expense of those things that have a more immediate need for you.

For those who have 12 – 16 hours in a day to work on the things they love to do, you can fit in churning out the work that will pay the bills and still have time to spend on the longer term projects. For the rest of us, we have to learn the patience and humility of biding our time even though we are chomping at the bit to throw ourselves into the projects that we know will propel us to independence and new levels of greatness in our careers.

He who fears being conquered is certain of defeat. - Napoleon Bonaparte

The one thing we cannot do is succumb to fear. We cannot fear failure, or just being mundane. We have to maintain the upbeat attitude that in the long term we will prevail. We have to accept we will get sidetracked, or completely derailed at times.

When we are down, we are not out. It will be in keeping the faith in our ability and creativity and staying in touch with our desire to succeed that will be what pulls us back online, syncs our actions with our goals, and drives us to our ultimate success. There is a oft-used cliche, “What the mind can conceive and believe, the body can achieve.” It applies as much here as in any where or in any other way it could be used.

With patience to pace ourselves, we can climb the highest peaks. Welcome to the journey, I will see you at the top!

8 Comments

Thanks for reposting this! It's a great reminder and quite timely considering I just spent a week thinking I need a swift kick in the pants to get myself moving.

Posted by: Kelley Dawkins | August 26, 2012 at 03:56 AM

Hi Kelley, I'm glad my timing was right for you. I hear ya about the kick in the pants. We all need it once in a while. Cheers, Barney

Posted by: Barney Davey | August 26, 2012 at 10:42 AM

Very inspiring! Exactly what I needed. Thank you!

Posted by: [email protected] | August 27, 2012 at 10:19 AM

This was perfect timing for me too. I totally agree with you about the full time job and insurance. I'm in the same position. Your last paragraph hit even closer to home as I have the possibility of promotion coming up and that really spoke to me in regards to analyzing if I can do the job, so I appreciate your posts for alot of aspects in life. Our journey may take longer in artistic endeavors but I look forward to the view from the top.

Posted by: Andrea Auletta | August 27, 2012 at 11:43 AM