A Career in the Arts? Really? – Part I
What drives someone to desire a career as an artist?
What makes them say, I’m going to make “art” for a living?
I surely don’t know, but I know that I’ve fully made that decision.
Over the course of the nearly 10 years that I’ve lived in New York, I’ve made plenty of art, but always struggled when people asked me what I did for a living. It felt, somehow, disingenuous to say, “why, I’m an artist!” when I knew that I had another job. It didn’t feel right even when I was making a good deal of my income from freelance graphic design (that’s a personal statement and not a comment on the artistic merits of design). When I hit my early 30′s, however, it dawned on me: it’s time to do it or not, but no more half-way. I didn’t want to lay on my deathbed wishing that I had tried to be an artist. I was going to do it.
Nigh on two years later and I’ve done it: and by “done it” I mean that on a day-to-day basis it’s all I do, and though I may be ass-over-tea kettle in debt, with a hill to climb in front of me that would intimidate the most talented in the field, I still go to bed at night with a smile on my face.
Click for Part II of this ongoing look at the origins of an interest in the arts.
Studio cat, Igga, keeps a watchful eye on the work at paw...
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