What are the most difficult aspects of being an artist?

Question from Laila Rezai

Tipping Point - 36 x 48 inches Laila Rezai

Question from Laila Rezai - lailarezaiart.com

What do you find to be the most difficult aspects of being an artist? And has that changed through various decades of your life? (I'm not saying you’re 2000 years old, it's just that there's an evolution of our person as we move through time)

 I, in recent years, have come to the conclusion that the biggest difficulty for artists in general is to understand that one’s drive to be an artist has to be firmly acknowledged and then the artist has to develop their creative drive into a lifestyle. In other words, they need to design their whole life around  their intention that allows them to pursue that specific interest and be able to thrive at it.

Artists just have to be artists and that is the way it is. The artist may not have a big desire to make a business out of it with all of the pressure of having to produce huge amounts of inventory and get it out under the scrutiny of the public market but some do and are willing to put in that big extra effort.

If the artist is of the former demeanor, he/she might choose something else to make a living so that there is no economic pressure to sell his/her art and then work in leisure and peace at whatever comes to him/her creatively without any regard of the work having any relevance or interest to anyone other than him/herself.

I am sure there are many poets, writers, artists, composers, philosophers, etc. maybe the vast majority who chose this more private contemplative lifestyle and are perfectly happy with it. They are like mystics living in a mountain cave of obscurity. An extreme and very creative example would be the fascinating life of the great photographer Vivian Maier. Here is a video of her life:

Finding Vivian Maier:

Another notable example is the poet Wallace Stevens who worked his whole life in the insurance business despite his literary success.

If the artist is of the latter demeaner of wishing to be a professional artist, then that artist has a generally more difficult trail. The time spent at a job that the former artist has to support him/herself, also has to be spent by the one hoping to become a self-sustaining artist living from his/her creative efforts.  The would-be professional artist usually has to live a lifestyle just like the other artist, getting jobs for support and so forth but must also have a determination to achieve commercial success as an artist which might take many years if he/she is able to achieve it at all.

Philip Glass the composer worked at various jobs till the age of 41 before becoming a full-time self-sustaining composer/performer.

Between these two ends is a continuum along which most artists will find their comfort zone around which to build their lifestyle. Some poor, some wealthy, some in between.

The main thing, however, is for the artist to build a suitable lifestyle that will sustain his/her ability to work as an artist enough to explore, develop and grow creatively. If that is achieved, that is success.

The thing is, if you study the work habits of artists, writers and composers many of them might only work 3-4 hours most days to maintain their commercial obligations as seen in the books of Mason Currey at Subtle Maneuvers.

Click image below to look at these books on bookshop.com Highly recommended.

Since I am one of the artists that just cannot bare to divide my time and attention and must work in my studio as much as possible, with the help of my wife we figured out various ways over the years to keep a roof over our heads. While I sold works pretty consistently through galleries starting in the mid 1980’s, for a lot of years it was only covering my basic studio expenses and maybe a little extra. The art sales income was also sporadic and unreliable. We didn’t work at any regular jobs as employees. Instead we created small businesses to provide enough studio time and additional income to fill the gap between art sales income and our living expenses until finally in my early 50’s we closed the gap and it has been more or less smooth sailing ever since. I am grateful for that. But it was a lot of living hand to mouth and long hours and a lot of figuring things out and analyzing and strategizing, budgeting and sacrificing and a lot of firmly held intention, faith and relentlessness.