Read Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again, Ogilvy on Advertising, The Adweek Copywriting Handbook and dive deep into Storytelling. That's the basic toolkit for inventing the persona of a successful artist, and yourself.
Ask HN: Any successful transitions from a tech/IT career to working in the arts?
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Re: Ask HN: Any successful transitions from a tech/IT career to working in the arts?
#72It's not exactly the same, but a transition to woodworking seems to be relatively common for programmers. Try a search for that, you'll find some personal stories. My advice FWIW is that if you're determined to make a new career as a creative, to find some low-stress, absolutely 9-5 job that allows you to just do your job and not worry about it afterwards. The government here has IT jobs that are 35 hours a week. My…
> My expectation is that the work would be soul-sucking and the pay very low. FWIW, I've not found this to be true. My Enterprise IT stints were enjoyable, with lower pay, but not so low as to be unworkable. I'd say they fell around 80% of SaaS rates, not the 35% you proposed. They were exactly the type of day job I'd want if I were really putting my energies into growing out a new side gig.
I was exaggerating with the 35%. But both the local university and the local government where I am (Edmonton, Canada) advertise mid-level jobs in the 55-60k Canadian range, which is about 50% of local market rates.
Re: Ask HN: Any successful transitions from a tech/IT career to working in the arts?
#73I have worked for over 20 years in IT development and consulting while loosely making my own original (self produced) music and (occasionally) performing live. I decided the past year (mid 2020 until now) after all of the pandemic issues and shutdowns to see how far my music would go and I incorporated my record label and released more music than I ever have before. My plan was always to be practical first before being adventurous. Many of my musician friends who were adventurous are stuck trying to recover financially and catch up skill-wise now that they have families and health care needs, so practicality simply has to be a part of any plan in my opinion unless you are born with a silver spoon (which i wasn't)
I found that may others had the same idea, and that I was instantly competing with many others that had a lot more resources than me, including major industry record labels. Conversely, I had more time to realize that a lot of the statistics were not realistic because of taking the time out to investigate with my knowledge of IT and development.
A lot, probably of the majority of musicians that look successful are in reality not. Most are discovered based upon their geographical location and connections they have (especially family connections and sheer luck or favoritism that I really can't be jealous of). Success (real honest success) is a very steep uphill battle for everyone in any career field.
Based on my experience though, I'll never stop creating music and doing things my way, but social media is of little help and lots of hype in terms of music discovery, so I stopped investing heavily in it, developed my own web site, and I spend time producing video content to accompany my music rather than posting monologues and skits. I love what I do, and no longer have dreams of it paying off, but regardless I'm very fortunate to have work that pays very well as a back up plan. No regrets on my end.
Re: Ask HN: Any successful transitions from a tech/IT career to working in the arts?
#74You need to understand that success in the arts looks very different from success in STEM. In our field success is all about how much money you can make, there is a side focus on also feeling fulfilled, but rarely do you hear people talk about how fulfilling their work as a function of itself. In the arts on the other hand success is defined by how happy you are with the work you’ve accomplished regardless of a dolla…
Unfortunately success in the arts also depends on making a name for yourself and that is directly correlated to how much you sell, who you worked with and how many people heard about you.
You’re conflating the wrong things again, if you’re worried about what others value then yes you need to make a name for yourself. But if all you want is happiness, other people’s judgment isn’t necessary
Re: Ask HN: Any successful transitions from a tech/IT career to working in the arts?
#75If you are NOT already doing the same arts prior and now, you are probably setting yourself up for failure. Arts just like STEM aren't something you "just switch to" without prior and established talent.
Beyond that, it's more about your tenaciousness and commitment if you have the skills and desire. Just like anything else!!
Re: Ask HN: Any successful transitions from a tech/IT career to working in the arts?
#76I think your first step might be to take a single class at a university, on whatever subject interests you.
Your question is at first straightforward. You say the "arts", which to many means the Fine Arts: painting, sculpture, music, etc. And so they advise you of the financial pitfalls. All well and good.
But upon closer inspection, your words are are little mysterious, because as examples you include sociology, history, and journalism. As others have pointed out, these are unlike trying to become a full-time novelist or guitarist. Broadly speaking, however, they do fall under the Arts, specifically the Liberal Arts, or the Humanities. If that is what you mean, the financial outlook still is dimmer than good old computer programming, finance, or business, but much brighter than trying to make a living as a painter.
As for getting into one of these Liberal Arts fields, I don't have a lot of good examples. The best advice I would have has already been given: in that you simply try to join a company that overall is in the field you are interested in. For example, if you are into journalism, try to get a job at a news company. If you are a history buff, maybe try to get a job at a textbook company or some other publisher of history books. It doesn't matter what kind of job you get. So you could exploit your expertise and try to land a job as a computer programmer there or something else technical. But once you are in there, as many have said here and elsewhere, it is far easier to slowly work your way into one of the more artistic jobs within the company. This is because of the huge importance of trust. The company now knows you, you are part of its circle, and after a couple of years of them observing that you're not a psycho, that trust goes a long way, and you actually have an advantage over a total stranger applying with a little bit stronger of a resume, because the company at this point is unsure that the stranger is trustworthy. Trust is huge. Join a company you like, make a few friends, bounce around from the inside.
But before that, you might consider just taking a college class --- the very thing you missed out on early on. This will give you a feel for what the work is like and might expose you to a few like minds, to the very beginning of social networking. Your teacher or classmates could advise you on extracurricular activities or clubs and, slowly, you could work your way further and further along.
Re: Ask HN: Any successful transitions from a tech/IT career to working in the arts?
#77You could have a look into Visual Effects or some other career which blends technology and art.
Re: Ask HN: Any successful transitions from a tech/IT career to working in the arts?
#78That's really a non-linear path, but I'll try to tell the most important waypoints anyway: I have a background in Physics and had already around 5 years of professional tech experience under my belt. Being frustrated with corporate life I moved to Berlin in 2013, decided to co-found again and minimized my recurring expenses, finding a cheap place with an old friend.
That co-founding didn't go well and I started visiting really a lot of Meetups (too bad that's not an option right now, hopefully soon again!). So eventually I ended up working at a co-working space. Many people there worked with freelancing, had a design background and my supervisor actually was working as freelance artist on the side.
So I was getting involved in as many projects as I could. Eventually I was attending a Hackathon that I really liked. It was quite a high-effort project, unfinished but me and a friend decided to continue it after the Hackathon. At that point I was also frequenting another more artistic Hackerspace and the owner asked if we wanted to exhibit the project. Being unfinished, one requirement was to give it an artsy touch. Of course me and the other guy still being in the project agreed. He also has a design background.
This way I ended up having a project exhibited in a science art place and I also realized that my project list at that time mostly consisted of highly experimental projects. At that point I wasn't really putting that much effort in anymore. Eventually I also decided to sort out my life and went for a regular job again. But the irony is, things were going by themselves and it was already more effort to "go out" than to stay in that space.
FWIW, I noticed that there are quite a few literature/writing Meetups. Maybe that's a nice way to get your hands dirty. I mean you can just visit and join the projects whenever those come up...
Re: Ask HN: Any successful transitions from a tech/IT career to working in the arts?
#79I think you'd find Jason Robert's story very interesting. He studied computer science in college and worked in the tech field for over a decade, but then decided to take a break from that and taught himself how to draw and worked on a video game that he developed and illustrated himself over 7 years, that became the award-winning Gorogoa, a clever puzzle game where you slide a 2x2 grid of panels around over each other or reposition them to progress further into the game.
He's got a few hour long talks out there, but here's a good interview from him.
https://gamepilgrim.com/2020/01/20/developer-interview-jason...
As for myself, I've dabbled in art since I was a kid (often doodling while bored in classes), and have released video games with my own art in them and electronic music I composed myself, some of which have done pretty well (although it was still basically just 'programmer art', i.e. not anything terribly beautiful). I also enjoy writing humorous stories and have had a few short stories published in anthologies.
I've also done my own graphic design for board game prototypes I've created, a couple of which publishers had said they probably would just use if they were to release the game. I'd still call it just barely serviceable, though.
I see myself more as a creative that is skilled at computers and has to do that for my livelihood, but I'm hoping I can get to the point where I can take a long sabbatical to pursue creative works more directly again, instead of a handful of hours here and there on the weekends.
Re: Ask HN: Any successful transitions from a tech/IT career to working in the arts?
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately success in the arts also depends on making a name for yourself and that is directly correlated to how much you sell, who you worked with and how many people heard about you.
You’re conflating the wrong things again, if you’re worried about what others value then yes you need to make a name for yourself. But if all you want is happiness, other people’s judgment isn’t necessary
I never disagreed with the happiness part, as a matter of fact it is what I do. But I don't consider myself as a successful artist neither do I care to, just doing my thing and getting what I need to get from it. That is not considered success, especially when the world has no idea about one's happiness doing their own thing. And by the way, you saying that I am "conflating the wrong things again" is patronizing and very assuming.