The vision in my head last night was one of crossing the border and proceeding through customs with my passport, which simply lists my occupation as “Artist”. It is a straightforward word, which can be embellished upon with the words painter, photographer, sculptor, metalworker, lapidary…. The joke that occurred to me was that of being asked to explain what kind of artist, and instead of stating my art interests, I replied with “starving, what other kind is there?” Of course, my humour was well received in my little imagining; perhaps it would not go over so well in real life.
This personal humour combined with some articles that I have read and watched lately on “successful” artists, i.e. those that aren’t starving for money, lead me to the following musings:
1) We are all starving artists, regardless of the monetary success. We are all still hungry for something.
2) To insert the word “starving” in front of the word “artist” is redundancy at its finest.
I think that the issue for so many artists is that we have come to accept the definition of success as one of monetary means. If we make money, lots of money, the works sell, has representation in galleries, and orders keep pouring in, then success has been achieved. Add to this that the perception of the public is that the artist is no longer starving and voila, an artistic genius at work, but are we missing something when this is the only measurement we use?
The genius might be hard at work, filling the orders, creating the pieces that replicate the ones that the gallery sold. The genius is staying so busy in the studio that they have neither time to recharge, visit old friends, nor work on developing their own artistic voice and vision any further than where it was at the moment they were “discovered” and became “successful”. This is still a starving artist, one that hungers for quiet, vision, a moment of peace and a recovery of a sense of self.
The undiscovered artist makes do with whatever is at hand to work with, with whatever inspires and excites. Has time to develop new work based on old, and moves forward in style and technique based on their artistic vision. They never seem stuck, or rushed, but the money is always tight. They are starving for representation, hungry for a cash flow that would allow for better or more consistent supply of materials. They are starving for elusive financial success.
Both artists need to create, that is the nature of the artist, but both artists are still starving.
When the success of the artist is narrowly defined by money, the former is successful and unhappy, and the latter poor but inspired. Hardly seems to be a winning combination in any case.
Artist is not a narrow word, there are multitudes of types and styles of artist, so too then artistic success should be defined as broadly. If the artist would no more limit themselves to one type of paper or brush or pen or stone or figure, then why should success be limited to one definition?
As an artist, who dislikes redundancy in a statement, there needs to be a better way to define artistic success, like having enough money to get by comfortably, but enough time and control over the work to remain in forward motion, which also means a willingness to try new ideas, risk rejection and occasionally fire the “too demanding client”. I know one thing for sure, that defining my success as an artist beyond the standard measure of money, makes me a much happier person, and that’s a success too.
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