How I create art in my busy world…
I’m often asked when I’m at a show or an art event, “Is this what you do for a living?” Truly, I don’t know what a person’s motivation is when they ask me that question, but the answer is, no this is not my day job even though I would love it to be. I am an art teacher by trade and have been gainfully employed in that particular profession for 19 years and counting. I love teaching art and it has afforded me the ability to sharpen and hone my skills while teaching those skills to other people.
It has been my experience that most artists I have ever been around make their living using the skills they have mastered over their years of practice in a day job to pay the bills, but very few of them make art and sell it at a profitable enough clip to make a living creating art. It’s not that a living can’t be made in this chosen line of work but the term “starving artist” is definitely rooted in reality and if any of you know me, I like my steak and potatoes. So, I digress but for real, making a living as an artist can be super challenging, dealing with the gallery system and websites, sales via 3rd parties, and commissions. Sometimes it’s a little bit less stressful to make that steady paycheck and then take the other obstacles in your own time. Which is the way I have chosen to take this journey that I am telling you about.
Back to the meat and potatoes, which I expressed already that I love, how do you balance a full-time job and full-time life as a dad and still become a working, producing, and most importantly a selling artist? You hustle, every waking second, hustle to promote, hustle to work, hustle to frame, hustle to network, just hustle all the time.
Let me offer a word of advice, the same word of advice I got when I started this whole endeavor. The only way to make a run at art as a side-hustle-money-making-venture is, make a schedule and stick to it! I think for next month’s blog we shall discuss just that.
Until then, keep hustling!
Sean Manning