kerihobo 2015-02-09 22:26:54

I think as artists it is partly our challenge to make our art while making money. You don't have to be a starving artist, you can be a paid artist. It's tricky to find a paying forum for all our crazy, experimental ideas, and sometimes we have to settle for selling something that ISN'T crazy or experimental. Actually that's where I make my money. As soon as I get home... that's when the real art begins. But definitely, if I was flat broke and homeless, I would still be "creating". There are very amazing artists who don't much care though. They achieve such beautiful work, to an impressive quality that outshines many who are so deeply passionate about their works.

I'm not sure where I'd draw the line between a real artist and a foney wannabe. Our entire field is a mess of subjectiveness. And to many of us, the art is more than what we manifest within reach of our senses, but a lot of what makes it so special is still within our minds, the part that nobody will ever see. Whether or not someone is a real artist, we may never know for sure about any individual. Perhaps all that matters is that we try.

WayneAdams 2015-02-09 22:44:57

I've been a professional artist for eight years and I still have days where I wanna burn everything I've ever made and become a park ranger or something..

I don't think I ever thought to myself "Wow.. I'm cool because I'm an artist." It's always been more like "Wow, I'm lucky to be an artist" and by that.. I mean one that gets paid. Right now I am in a slump.. I've gone from 45 k to 55 k to my last gig before freelance that paid me 75 k a year.. and life was friggin amazing.

Now my freelance work has dried up so I'm trying to be a legitimate individual artist.. making my own stuff, selling it.. and eating ramen every night.. it sucks, it's not cool.. but I don't think I'd trade it for anything.

saucybird 2015-02-09 23:45:37

Idk I always figured you do what you do because you enjoy it, regardless of your living situation or lifestyle. Ideally it'd be cool to make a career out of whatever you enjoy doing, so that's why you work hard, fail or succeed. But saying " I need food, so that means I don't care about the art" is so far-fetched because you NEED food/water/basic human necessities to LIVE.

Look at Pendleton Ward with Adventure Time. He quit running the show because (and I quote)
“it was driving [him] nuts.”
“To spend that extra energy and time you don’t have, to make something that’s worth making, to make it awesome, wears you out,"
"For me, having quality of life outweighed the need to control this project and make it great all the time."

But also he's succeeded. That should also say something though, he's already "made it" and he still has to deal with issues like this. That's my take on the issue I guess

wow i put more into this comment than i thought i was going to lol (⊙︿⊙✿)

kerihobo 2015-02-10 04:38:48

I'm not sure I understand the response. But I'd say any artist, before being an artist, has been a human being not an artist, even if only for the early moments. Undoubtedly, art comes to as as a second nature, it is not that it opposes eating, breathing, shitting, fucking, or anything else, but rather that it sits in the same line as all other aspects of our lives.

So, say you must create, creation ends with you. You live to create, you must survive. When you are dead, you are no longer an artist, only the thing that remains. Your creations exist eternally if you made them that way, but they give not half a fuck about you. Without you, your creations are meaningless to yourself. If you aren't here to acknowledge your work, few others will give it meaning, at least the same meaning it had for you.

You gotta live to be an artist. I mean that in a lot of different ways. So you also gotta take care of yourself. Going insane doesn't necessarily mean the art is all that substantial.