Artists and Money

Here are some thoughts about doing an art form and making money which is on my mind because as it turns out I did not get the grant I was hoping for. All hope is not lost…but more on that later. For now, let’s talk about arts and money in a general sense.

Seems to me a person decides to do arts for a living because we get bitten by the bug, inspired by some incredible experience and we basically just want more! Then we fall in love with doing the work of an artist. We want to spend as much time as possible developing our craft and eventually sharing what we are doing with others. Basically we want to become professional so we can do it much more in depth than if it were just a hobby.

Then I also think about something from yogic philosophy. They say that one should work without attachment to money or reward. I’ve thought about this idea a lot and tried to understand what it really means, especially in relation to arts. I’ve come up with this: I don’t think it means to never be practical or that you shouldn’t set a fair price. We can think about things like prices and still not be attached to the overall financial outcome (which is often unknown when we start anyway). It’s really just that we don’t want to be focused so much on the financial and lose focus on what got us here in the first place. You know, beauty, transcendence, and all that…and shared experiences of the above.

Maybe on a certain level trying to be an artist will automatically help us learn all this. Once committed, we know we’re going to keep doing the things we do regardless of the pay we are getting at the time. As the market for what we do ebbs and flows we learn not to let it bother us too much. If I were to turn this into advice for young artists it might be this: do what you love and the money might come. It might not come directly how you think it would and chances are you won’t be as famous as your chikdhood heroes but you will find some way to support what you’re doing and you will find some way to share it with others. If that’s all you ask for, you will probably be pretty happy. Now, let’s all get back to work on our stuff!