Must we starve

We jammed at the Aeronautical museum in Bangalore today. The point of our jams is to stimulate ideas and spark discussions, and the one we had today was about the apparently inverse correlation between artists and profitable careers. The Starving Artist meme, basically.

I have some opinions on this. Rather strong ones actually, maybe even controversial. Before I can lay them out, though, I need to offer some background first. Let’s start with some credentials.

The Cred

I’ve spent a little over 3 decades in the field of the Visual Arts, and have been more fortunate than others in exploring this field. I started my career as a cartoonist, worked in the publishing, advertising and retail sectors and eventually went on to lead UX teams at large software organizations. Furthermore, I have taught Art & Design, served on the Board of Studies for an Art College, and have built pedagogy and Art-Education products from ground up.

Today, I run a 15-year-old design consulting firm and a Not-for-Profit Foundation dedicated to promoting the Visual-Arts. This is all to say that I understand the domain, and that the rest of this opinion piece comes from a certain vantage point.

Right. With that out of the way, let’s look at what is ailing artists and their wallets.

What ails artists

There are probably many different factors at play. I will ignore things such as financial privilege, access to education, cultural advantages, personal networks etc. because these are all self-evident in affecting an artist’s ability to earn. I will also ignore external factors such as rapid technological growth over the past century, cultural homogenization etc. because they are outside the scope of this article.

Instead, let us look inwards.

I think Artists suffer because they romanticize their field and as an extension – themselves. I say this because I have observed artists across a variety of disciplines and backgrounds. The ones that are the least self-conscious about their artistic abilities are often also the ones who have the least empirical information about the field.

An artist from a backwaters village will speak about craft, whereas the city-dwelling, Art educated, gallery hopping artist will choose to muse.

Talking ourselves up

I think this is an interesting social phenomenon. The reason I think this happens is that the world sees and reports on art as an emotional-creative process, almost spiritual in nature. The artist is by extension seen as a sort of mystic, one who is born with a certain sensitivity to the world, a mysterious ability that results in works of art.

In certain parts of India, physicians are treated as gods. Healing can also be a mysterious ability, but imagine for a moment a physician, who craves the adoration, and plays god.

Isn’t this the kind of Physician one would avoid at all costs.

Artists face a similar situation, except they seem to drink their own kool-aid. This self-romanticizing leads to all sorts of problems in how artists perceive themselves and the world around them.

For instance, the Visual Arts have always depended on patronage of some form or the other, and I think it is because the Fine Arts are seen as pure. I mean this in the same sense as those who practice Pure Sciences and who also depend on funds and grants.

Just like a researcher, Fine Artists practice their craft with an intent to build artistic skills and knowledge, without much regard for actual artistic application.

So, the road-block seems to be this self-inflicted romantic notion of being a fine artist, pure and unsullied, struggling in a world that only seems to reward crass commercialized kitsch. (To be forever cured of the notion that these two are not mutually exclusive, look up Jeff Koons)

Artistic Ability as Pace Layers

The longer the artist persists with this perspective, the harder it is to earn a decent living from the Arts. So, what can we do about it? I have some ideas, and I’m going to use Stewart Brand’s Pace Layers to illustrate my ideas on application.

Imagine a series of conveyor belts laid one above the other. They are all in constant motion, except that the one below is always running slower than the one above. This means the belt at the bottom is running the slowest, while the one right on top runs the fastest.

Now think of Artistic Application as these layered belts. Here they are laid out one above the other.

5. Art as a Business Wrapper
4. Art as a Product
3. Art & an Auxiliary Skill
2. Art and Soft Skills
1. Pure Artistic Skill

Layer 1

Pure artistic skill, which is right at the bottom, moves really slowly. It is glacially slow. It takes time to build artistic skill and knowledge and so, this is an activity of a life-time.

I think the vast majority of fine artists stop at this point. They find themselves in the career equivalent of a primordial tar pit, as they inch their way from one group exhibition to the next hoping to build a brand, hoping they will be discovered as the next big thing.

Layer 2

The belt above this one involves marrying pure artistic skills with soft skills. Those artists who can communicate better, who are culturally savvy, do better and move faster than the Pure Artistic Skill belt that is below them.

Layer 3

The next belt in our stack are those who can marry pure artistic ability with an auxiliary skill. For pure artists this may mean framing their work as pop-cultural references, activism, nods to history or as philosophical puzzles, all of which requires a certain amount of education. For applied artists, this may mean mixing an interest in technology to work in digital design, or an interest in reading business literature to become a sketch note artist.

Layer 4

The belt above this one involves the artist using pure artistic ability to create a reproducible product. For fine artists this typically involves collaborative shows, limited edition prints, and even forays into their art being used in fashion and home decor. For applied artists, this can mean creating an illustrated book, for example.

Layer 5

Right at the top of this stack are Art entrepreneurs. These are people who have created businesses related to Art either directly or as a wrapper for another business. Almost all famous artists are represented by organizations, which may be run by family foundations. For applied artists, this may mean teaching Art workshops, or building an Art & Illustration studio.

So, each band rests on the one below it. An Art business moves really fast, and more can happen in a year of Art entrepreneurship than a few decades of simply practicing pure art and waiting to be discovered.

Of course, my pace-layers are actually arbitrary. I’m only using the layers as a lens to look at how the arts may be applied with respect to the ability of the artist at various points in their career progression. The point that i’m trying to make is that artists can break out of their self-made, romantic prisons by simply recognizing the fact that they are like any other professional on this planet. An artist is to his brush as a plumber to her wrench.