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You can't afford to be an artist and/or author, let alone be respected

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Re: You can't afford to be an artist and/or author, let alone be respected

#171

Post by drusenko »

"Making a living" is simply doing something that enough people find value in -- the more people and the greater the value provided, the more money you make.

Many artists focus on the process of art as one that is for themselves, which is completely fine - but don't expect to make a living out of it unless you are lucky and what you like is also what a lot of other people find value in.

Some of the art/music that the author describes as "mediocre" really should be "mediocre to me". Lots of popular music, for example, seems to find a common denominator that can appeal to the preferences of a large number of people with pretty divergent artistic/musical tastes, knowledge, education, preferences, etc. Many people find the music to be very enjoyable -- the author not included, obviously.

In that way, art and music can diverge. While successful music often provides somewhat smaller value to a large number of people, successful art can provide large value to a smaller number of people who can afford it.

In either case, understanding your target market, their characteristics, preferences, etc, is extremely worthwhile, because if you want to make a living from it, you need to be providing value to others and not just yourself.

That's not to say that all art has to be for others, just that you probably shouldn't expect to make a living on it if you have a target market of one.

Re: You can't afford to be an artist and/or author, let alone be respected

#172

Post by disantlor »

JoeyBananas wrote: post #170
nbzso wrote: post #141

A little life story: I had commercial success in art at the humble age of 23. Not only were my paintings respected and collected by accomplished and wealthy individuals, they formed commissions for years to come. My success was the result of an obsession with craftsmanship and clever word-of-mouth marketing. Suddenly, one day after insisting on meeting the deadline of the expensive commission, I had a headache and my…

> I don't paint for you. I paint for myself. It's part of my life. A place where there are no compromises, no demands, no expectations, no projections, no assessments, no tasks, no metrics, no applause and no glory. That sounds idealistic to the point of foolishness. The end result of your decision to quit art was that you had to get a job as a graphic designer. Doesn't that achieve even less of your vision? A lot of…

unless you conclude that art and the “system” are incompatible on some fundamental way. i’ve arrived at a similar place as OP anyway

Re: You can't afford to be an artist and/or author, let alone be respected

#173

Post by tomcam »

nbzso wrote: post #141

A little life story: I had commercial success in art at the humble age of 23. Not only were my paintings respected and collected by accomplished and wealthy individuals, they formed commissions for years to come. My success was the result of an obsession with craftsmanship and clever word-of-mouth marketing. Suddenly, one day after insisting on meeting the deadline of the expensive commission, I had a headache and my…

That’s a beautiful story. It’s so good that you found peace.

I have a child who is enormously gifted and could probably follow precisely the same career path you described. I fear/hope that child will make the same decisions you did.

Re: You can't afford to be an artist and/or author, let alone be respected

#174

Post by finexplained »

pcwalton wrote: post #167
finexplained wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but we actually provide business value and our toolset is applicable to a broad set of problems.

Obviously artists provide business value. That's why there is such a thing as the entertainment industry.

The distribution is different. The median programmer provides much more value than the median artist. Additionally math/cs skills apply much more broadly than art skills. The entertainment industry would be much less leveraged without the tools we built for them.

Re: You can't afford to be an artist and/or author, let alone be respected

#175

Post by andreilys »

ch4s3 wrote: post #161
rafaelero wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you understood what I was saying. It's not about taste, it's about being able to differentiate between human and machine made art using whatever metric people have about what constitutes good art.

I think you’d be hard pressed to find a group of people with minimal education in art who couldn’t reliably pice out the AI generated images. You might be able to trick them with abstract images or things intended to look like computer generated art that doesn’t have a complex or human subject matter. Frankly humans and animals generated by these things look like blurry trash or are wrong on details in a way a human…

Sounds like you haven't been looking that hard.

There are plenty examples on the DALL-E subreddit that put the majority of Deviant Art artists to shame.

Re: You can't afford to be an artist and/or author, let alone be respected

#176

Post by progman32 »

JoeyBananas wrote: post #170
nbzso wrote: post #141

A little life story: I had commercial success in art at the humble age of 23. Not only were my paintings respected and collected by accomplished and wealthy individuals, they formed commissions for years to come. My success was the result of an obsession with craftsmanship and clever word-of-mouth marketing. Suddenly, one day after insisting on meeting the deadline of the expensive commission, I had a headache and my…

> I don't paint for you. I paint for myself. It's part of my life. A place where there are no compromises, no demands, no expectations, no projections, no assessments, no tasks, no metrics, no applause and no glory. That sounds idealistic to the point of foolishness. The end result of your decision to quit art was that you had to get a job as a graphic designer. Doesn't that achieve even less of your vision? A lot of…

There is nothing in the laws of nature that require "rational actor" application of leverage. Money does not buy happiness. It seems their previous job directly conflicted with their stated goal of expressing themselves, and the new graphic design gig does not. To me that achieved quite a lot.

Re: You can't afford to be an artist and/or author, let alone be respected

#177

Post by jhanschoo »

JoeyBananas wrote: post #170
nbzso wrote: post #141

A little life story: I had commercial success in art at the humble age of 23. Not only were my paintings respected and collected by accomplished and wealthy individuals, they formed commissions for years to come. My success was the result of an obsession with craftsmanship and clever word-of-mouth marketing. Suddenly, one day after insisting on meeting the deadline of the expensive commission, I had a headache and my…

> I don't paint for you. I paint for myself. It's part of my life. A place where there are no compromises, no demands, no expectations, no projections, no assessments, no tasks, no metrics, no applause and no glory. That sounds idealistic to the point of foolishness. The end result of your decision to quit art was that you had to get a job as a graphic designer. Doesn't that achieve even less of your vision? A lot of…

I just don't think there is much of a market willing to patronize any one person's self-expression without any demands.

Re: You can't afford to be an artist and/or author, let alone be respected

#178

Post by swatcoder »

JoeyBananas wrote: post #170
nbzso wrote: post #141

A little life story: I had commercial success in art at the humble age of 23. Not only were my paintings respected and collected by accomplished and wealthy individuals, they formed commissions for years to come. My success was the result of an obsession with craftsmanship and clever word-of-mouth marketing. Suddenly, one day after insisting on meeting the deadline of the expensive commission, I had a headache and my…

> I don't paint for you. I paint for myself. It's part of my life. A place where there are no compromises, no demands, no expectations, no projections, no assessments, no tasks, no metrics, no applause and no glory. That sounds idealistic to the point of foolishness. The end result of your decision to quit art was that you had to get a job as a graphic designer. Doesn't that achieve even less of your vision? A lot of…

What’s all this about systems and leverage and wrangling external things to one’s own will?

It sounds like they just want to paint what they want, the way they want, and now do exactly that.

All this other stuff sounds like projection of your own concerns, and in pretty unfriendly language to boot.

Re: You can't afford to be an artist and/or author, let alone be respected

#180

Post by TheCoelacanth »

wyattpeak wrote: post #145
Baeocystin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, in a sense, but I think the point of where exactly it occupies on the hierarchy of needs is worthwhile to keep in mind.

I don't think that argument holds up. A VR headset, say, is astronomically high up the hierarchy of needs, but I know very few people who'd say the inherent value of a piece of modern technology is zero. It really seems to be art specifically which people are often keen to describe as worthless, not any particular category of good that artwork might fall into.

> A VR headset, say, is astronomically high up the hierarchy of needs

Debatable. One of the most popular uses of VR is pornography, which is targeted at one of the needs on the very bottom layer. Other uses are probably mostly serving mid-level needs like social belonging or esteem needs.

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