Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are plenty of impovrished, struggling artists - it's a cliche - and especially unknown ones creating for themselves. > Everyone else needed to find menial jobs. That doesn't mean you can't create art. Anthony Trollope worked for the post office. Einstein, who externalized imagination in somewhat different way and attributed much to art, was a patent clerk. New York and LA are filled with waitstaff-artists. A fr…
I sincerely never understood the “starving artist” thing. Everyone needs to be able to provide for themselves. The whole starving artist thing always came across (to me) as someone who refused to work because… art? Art, like anything else, lines up somewhere between a hobby and a career. Similar to athletes, somehow the cream just rises to the top. You never hear about “starving athletes” I guess is what I mean.
Go to the 'hood and see the one returning pro ball player interacting with forty no-money kids trying their hardest to make it.
All of the kids would be better off pursuing a higher-probability-of-success career (including unionized manual labor), but that's not what's happening.
Those are some starving athletes.