Art as a profession – A one Man Show
I was not raised or born to be an artist. I don’t come from a family of artists either. The whole artistic field is new to me. When I finished my first “real” oil painting, my GrandMother said: “I give you $1.00 for it”!!! It had taken me months to finish it. I studied Engineering, in other words, what people call “a real profession”.
In “Geek school”, one professor noticed something, the Engineering hallways were always full with students and teachers working and solving problems together. He also noticed that if he walked through the social sciences buildings (ie. Politics, language, and arts) the hallways were quiet. Everyone was working very hard, but on their own. So, he asked the question, which ones are really, the “social sciences”?
My Engineering career was the same. Fun!! Engineers everywhere (of course, being usually the only woman in the room, made it more fun), brainstorming sessions, exciting deadlines, and the permanent question: how do we solve a problem?
I started my Art profession 7 years ago, and it has been different. It has certainly been a quieter world. Art for the most part is taught as an individual project. “Go inside yourself, find your answers within”. This is of course true, as any creator in any field, has found the answers within him/herself. Few are the groups, (and the ones that have done it, like the Pre-Raphaelites, have been quiet successful) which share brainstorming sessions for Art sake.
Art as a profession is very different from art as a hobby. It is more like running an Engineering company as a one man show. The artist comes up with the idea, develops it, solves problems with technique and materials, finishes the product (painting or whatever art was developed), then, markets it, displays it, looks for customers, explains the customer his/her philosophy, moves the product from one place to the next, and if he does not sell it? Then comes the storage problem; what to do with the final product, especially for a prolific artist?
Few professions are as complete as an art profession. Artists are used to being hands on, from building their own frames, hanging and repairing their own work to marketing themselves. Many Engineering managers would love for their developers to understand the market from conception to production, and to still interface with the end user as well as an artist does. No wonder art as a profession is a very poor profession. We want to do it all.
I am not sure if it is a matter of “artist pride” which pushes us to do it all, and if this feeds back into the artist stereotypes of living in poverty. Imagine if Steve Jobs at Apple would have done it all? From conceiving the idea, soldering the resistors and processors to each circuit board, then selling individually every single one of them. For sure, he would not have been a millionaire by age 25.
I am not sure if this letter is a criticism to artists that we need to learn to make our life easier. Do we really have to build our own canvases? Or can we just trust an art supply store when they say their canvases are “archival” quality? I know I still can’t build my frames with the quality art supply stores do.
We also worry about permanency, and yes, we want our paintings to last a lifetime, but, if someone still appreciates my art in 100 years, I am sure they will do whatever it takes to preserve it, with much newer preserving techniques than what exists today.
What if art was run, from a logistic perspective, as a high tech company? Could we create functioning art associations where the one who is more “marketing savvy” will market for all? The one who likes to build frames and is good at it, would build for all? Can we make our lives easier?
What about galleries and their role in art? Aren’t they supposed to be the marketing and sales aspect of the art industry? If they are, and are actively selling, not passively waiting for a client to come in, then I am happy to give my 50% or even 60% to them.
I still have not figured out all the aspects of my new art profession. I am still only at the “creative” aspect of my work, quietly learning the trade, but I am indeed looking at the art “industry” with an Engineering eye.
So, next time you think of art as a profession, believe me, it is more than just “relaxing by painting”, so far it is an overwhelming, one man show!!!!
TaniaMabel
