Artists and business…
“Many artists enter the ‘real’ world with little to no idea of how to build a practice which can sustain them. So they eke out a living in low-paying jobs while creating art part time. Unsurprisingly, many become demoralised and give up art.” Jane Hayley
Well Jane when I went to art school there were no “jobs” mentioned, promised or otherwise (thoughts of maybe a Sales Assistant in an art shop, a curator, or an Art Teacher bounced around in my head, the latter causing me various ‘conniptions’ at the time…) Oh and what about graphic and multimedia arts, oh they have a separate course for that… The brochure that rambled on about the “Diploma of Visual Arts” talked about expression, exploring, creating, developing… but jobs… nah.. not a skerrick of that. Nor did it mention the idea of a “business” and being self employed and the various ramifications of that. I was lucky and landed a technical assistants role in the print department of the uni I studied at, but that was a go no where role, four years later I was bored out of my nut and went on to another technical role… non art related.
So whats the value of visual arts in career terms? Should it be hailed as purely a device for those “tortured souls” that want to tread the “self discovery” path, or for those few that have the “ability” to get through to the galleries, get a show, and entertain the collectors with articulate intellect and lure them into a spending frenzy, being touted as the next “big thing”? Sure there’s more to a “Career in Art” than self discovery for example the fact you can go into another career and utilise your creative skills, show me career that values and fully implements the sort of creativity and innovative approach an “artist” can give and I’ll gladly sign up, the fact is most careers along these lines end up being nothing more than an ideal wrapped up in a notion of “a better workplace due to the integration of various intelligencies and creative approaches”, while in reality the HR person that thought that up has since been shafted due to economic rationalistic notions of make money have fun.
So Jane, it’s easy to see that artists can fall for the notion that a “Certificate in Art” is somehow useful and become disillusioned when the “paper” promised so much, but delivered so little. In the race for funding $$ I don’t blame the educators for putting their “spin” on the arts, but somehow the way the Visual Arts is “sold” to students falls short, something must be done to stop the waste, and the demoralization of folks that tread the path of righteousness. Perhaps this is a duty of care issue and the brochures on these courses should come with a stand out disclaimer of some kind…
So many have so much faith, yet over time the faith wears thin and the strength to tackle, create, explore, develop and make anew, fades into insignificance, so much so that the years of study and the investment of time and $$ leave little but battle scars and a sense of worthlessness, as if duped by an investment scam and feeling ones life savings have vanished and never to be retrieved.
Do artists feel dissillusioned by the fact they have a room or three full of “art” that gets them a piece of paper with the illusion of some vague promise… they sure do Jane, they sure do…
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