Can You Take the Struggle Out of the Artist?
I recently asked a good friend, “How do artists make money online?” Her response:
“We don’t make money, we struggle.”
Now, she was being facetious of course, but how many people actually think this way? How many artists live their lives believing the struggle is part of the package? To live a life of penury is to be blessed with the splendor of artistic vision; one who dances with the muse isn’t fully realized until the body fades and the soul rises beyond the stars. Death is the only way to crack the safe.
When we create these mental stigmas, we doom ourselves to perpetuating not only this false pursuit, but also the broader picture of a society that consumes art and culture on a level far greater than ever before, yet feels generally bitter about paying for such consumption.
If you’re creating art for anyone other than the upper-classes of society, then chances are you’re underpaid and are expected to live this struggling life. Once you do produce for the upper-class, believe it or not, you’re often overpaid. There’s a gap at this level in society. The funny thing is, that gap is only seen from the lower end of the spectrum and disappears almost entirely once you cross it. This means the struggle is very well nothing but an illusion.
Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of times when I have wholeheartedly subscribed to the romantic notion of the artist’s struggle as part of the creative process. But that is my own battle - my own victory. I’ve been down that deep and foggy road. I sleep there sometimes just like you, and despite the cold, I wake with a warmth crawling up my spine and a fire on my breath. These are the personal meditations of an artist and not what society should have come to mark as a physical and economical standard.
So can you take the struggle out of the artist? No, I don’t believe you can. It’s an unavoidable outcome when one seeks answers through abstract questioning and receives only questions in answer. Should society take the struggle out of the artist? Absolutely.
Tomorrow we’ll look at some ways to transcend that romantic notion of the struggling artist, by outlining a plethora of ways an artist can make a lucrative living online. We’ll discover ways to make that gap seem less like the Grand Canyon and more like a puddle you can simply step over.
You can ease your inner self while dressing your outer self in silk. Don’t be fooled into thinking there aren’t two sides of the canvas. You’re an artist, you should already know this.
Image credit: one4all2nv.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
So I agree with your statement, but I also believe that anyone wanting to make money struggles. It’s just that most professions have an eventual and more guaranteed pay off for the struggle. It also seems harder for artistic types to accept the struggle of being an artist because you shouldn’t struggle to profit from doing what you love. Though at the same time, that great romanticized struggle is part of the creative process. Society should be more open to compensating the artist more fairly, but society has strange values. People these days seem more capable of naming ten celebrities than ten authors, let alone ten currently publishing authors. Or even the current Pulitzer Prize winner. But continuing the struggle can overhaul all of that. So it’s very worth it, isn’t it?
[…] we discussed the artist’s struggle and today, if you’re ready to give up the notion that one must struggle, and always struggle, […]
Agreed. The “struggle” is worth it…on a personal level. However, in society, struggling isn’t seen as a virtue and as long as we keep associating artists to such a label, it’s always going to be less desirable. Of course this always shifts as soon as the creator is dead. ;o)
Society seems to be interested in the story of the person, and the one who portrays them rather than the person herself. Which is why, I suppose, we moon over actors and praise deceased artists.
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Artists, at least in the finer arts such as painting and drawing, have a problem contributing their work in a way that directly benefits the more commercial fields that are booming or going steady at the moment, such as engineering and business.
I believe that the current archetype of a struggling artist originated from the effects of industrial revolution. Most things were not commercialized before then and therefore there was not much need for industries that benefit most from this. The art that ties in with commercial industries the most is graphic design. Graphic designers have less of a problem getting recognized than artists in other areas.
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