How to make a living as an artist

While this advice may work for some, I would like to point out that this person is making very popular art. This type of art is most likely easier to sell than what most contemporary artists produce.

Also, this remark is giving away a fairly limited view on art appreciation:

> While you can learn from failures, only sales strengthen the muscle because only they show that someone actually cares about what you are making

This is obviously not the case for art projects that target only a few people, or art practices that do not result in tangible objects. (Although there are some exceptions, such as Marina Abramovich, but those are very limited.)

Great for them, but this is not about all art. It just is impossible to live of most art forms. This type of art fits well with our economy, and therefore makes a living. That fit is more important than all the business advice put on top.

The article does point out exactly this problem, but glosses over the fact that most artists don't want to change to popular art. Only a few can, and most don't want to.

> The Beatles wrote 227 songs, but only 34 hit the Top 10. Do you think they would put out a song that they didn't believe could be a hit? Mozart wrote over 600 songs, but only about 50 of them are widely played. Do you think he purposefully wrote duds? Of course not.

This is completely backwards. The Beatles put out songs that they didn't think were hits, and put out songs that they were conscious of being the antithesis of a hit. They wanted to freak people out from time to time. As many artists do.

Just check out Revolution 9. Pretty sure you can't get much out there than that when it comes to music of that era. And still very out there to this day.

Or for a more 'songy songs' that I'm pretty sure they didn't think at all in terms of hit material: Tomorrow Never Knows or Within You Without You. And there's dozens more.

> Art is absolutely an expression of yourself. But your art is not you. Try not to entangle your ego with your art.

This is something I wish I could impress upon 23-year-old me. I had all the drive in the world to create, and made some things I knew would (to the right market) sell - and I was, in fact, proved right, a few times - but I felt nothing but embarrassment about the actual selling. It wasn't even that I feared rejection - quite the opposite! I was an actor; rejection is, like, 90% of the job - and I had no problem selling other things, or others' work, just my own. Saying "I've got something great, you should buy it" about my own stuff felt unbearably egoistic. To be honest, it still makes me cringe. I'm not completely sure where that comes from - maybe an upbringing in a religious culture that emphasized humility? Anyway, I certainly don't have a "hustle" mentality, and can't quite bear those who do. Nevertheless, I'd have got a lot further in that career if I could have let go of that particular inhibition.

Some interesting context here is that fnnch is disliked as an artist by many - https://www.kqed.org/arts/13896327/fnnch-honey-bears-street-...

I’m somewhat of two minds of the whole thing. I don’t blame the guy for making an income, but yeah, the honey bears are kind of boring, and especially w/ this post he comes off as a bit of a sellout. Art is weird.

As a father of two small children during COVID, I can't begin to thank fnnch enough for his Honey Bear Hunt project: https://upmag.com/honey-bear-fnnch/

Hundreds (if not thousands) of honey bears were posted in windows around SF. It was one of those things that happens in SF every now and then, a mix of whimsy and hustle and unexpected joy. We couldn't take our kids to school, we couldn't take them to the park. Instead, we would drive them around town and have them point out all the honey bears they saw. "Honey bear! Another one!"

Maybe I'm being thick here, but i still dont quite get how does he earn money from his artwork?

For example, how does he earn from the Honey Bear murals? does the city or building owner commission him for the murals? If so, does he do some kind of outreach or sales call to the building owners or is it the other way round?

Not an artist and nor am I in the art world, just curious how does business work in there

I'd say painting is quite a different business model than making music. There are different channels, people nowadays don't understand the value of music because they "have" everything on Spotify/Apple Music/whatever and there must be a huge tech behind you to sell good quality of sound. You also can't make your own CD (yes you can, but will it work with a CDR recorder?) and sell it progressively for $100 then for $500...

Paintings are really different kind of animal.

Good post. I'd argue this is very similar to solo game development. There's a lot of extra administrative stuff that simply has nothing to do with actually making games and a lot more to do with making a real business. So the framing there is accurate.

Move to Ireland, they just rolled out basic income for artists

It depends on your art form and what you’re trying to say. Because once you start optimizing your work for sales, you are deliberately going down a certain path.

I don’t want to criticize that path - because being paid as an artist is a millennia-old thing. The idea that true artists don’t work for money is something that came out of the Romantic era, and many, many world famous historical artists like Da Vinci or Michelangelo were doing a job for rich clients. But it seems to lock you into a path where you need to replicate the same style over and over again, because that’s what you’re known for.

There’s a great little scene in the Basquiat movie about this:

I'm talking about the same kind of work. The same style, so people can recognize you and don’t get confused. Once you’re famous, airborne, you gotta keep doing it in the same way. Even after it’s boring. Unless you want people to really get mad at you…which they will anyway.

https://youtu.be/hfI1YAo32fc?si=05msdQY9-SCJAMhX

I think the Phillip Glass solution of doing a completely unrelated job is probably a better solution, IF you’re trying to focus on expression. It also gives you more material for creating; if you read many writers and artists’ bios, their day jobs directly impacted their work.

My favorite example being Moby Dick - could someone without years of whaling experience even begin to conceive of that book?

> While you can learn from failures, only sales strengthen the muscle because only they show that someone actually cares about what you are making

There are languages where there's a distinction between artists and painters.

They stopped being an artist with that one line.

I appreciate the time and effort they put into writing that. Interesting to see not only their own art but also the examples from other artists.

Any recommendations for getting exposure to other on-the-way-to-being-popular artists like the X-Ray one that was highlighted?

So he's basically saying that artists should use vandalism to become successful? Kind of a very bold proposition.

I really enjoyed this post. Nice balance of pragmatism while enjoying the enjoyment of a craft in itself.

great post, thank you! I recently started showing and selling my art (I do plotter art and paintings). It’s both exciting and frustrating at times to see how pieces “land” or completely miss.

I kind of think that “art” that is about repeat sales and branding is really more craft than art.

I don’t mean that it’s without merit just that although these things live in the same space they are not the same.

Selling unique works is harder due to sentimentality. Easier to sell replicated works, like digital music.

Awesome post - really insightful!

> Mozart wrote over 600 songs, but only about 50 of them are widely played.

Calling Mozart’s works “songs” is ignorant.

Mozart wrote some songs (“lieder”, or art songs for voice and piano), but his work spans operas, symphonies, concertos, chamber music, masses and other sacred music, and solo piano works.

I compose all sorts of music but the only music people really like (and give me money for) is pirate music.

Not pirated music. Pirate music.

shrug