Progressing as an artist while maintaining a good relationship/social life

[the_jos]

So how does everyone else deal with these problems without upsetting other people too much?

This is your problem.
You don't ask about good relationship or social life, you ask how to not upset other people too much.

You know what? For a good relationship or social life it's good to say no once in a while.

Sometimes reaching this many hours a week involves having to outright lie to friends, family or my girlfriend just so I can have some free time to get work done.

See? You need to lie to people you like and care about? What is wrong with you? Why can't you say no and see what will happen? Will they reject you because you say no? Is that what friendship or family is about?

You know what is important? You! Not in a selfish way, but when you are not happy or struggling in life how can you be of real value to others?
If you want to give you should give from what you have extra, not from what you don't have or need for you.

Next: do only one thing at a time. You have food for exactly one day, then you starve. Next food will arrive tomorrow. Now a friend comes who is also starving. You can keep the food for you. Will keep you alive but kill him. You can give the food to him. This will keep him alive and kill you. Both are good choices. Now you share the food. You both die. This is a bad choice.

You need to make choices. Who is important. You or someone else?
And what is important? Relationship with other people? I think so! But what does a relationship with someone (loved one, friends, family) really need? If you put more time in your relationship with someone, will the relationship get better? Or are relationships based on something else than time invested in the relationship?

I think it's time for you to answer what you really want instead of trying to answer what others might want from you.

[BlightedArt]

"Social life is an illusion, drawing (or whatever medium you work in) is something real and solid. After a few hours spent drawing you're left with something physical, an object you can hold in your hand. After a day around people you have nothing."

vampire cervix, you are JOKING right? After a day around people you have memories of a day around people. Probably fond memories. Even so: being around people helps you artistically by observing how people behave over prolonged periods of time: that's not really something you can stage and study in depth while "at work".

Edit: cutting out elements of the outside world that you're trying to paint, doesn't make sense.

[Ian Miles]

"Social life is an illusion, drawing (or whatever medium you work in) is something real and solid. After a few hours spent drawing you're left with something physical, an object you can hold in your hand. After a day around people you have nothing."


You cannot put anything valuable on paper without going out with other people lots of days around.

[crossmirage]

I personally loathe making contacts with people outside art-related fields, so social life is not that much of a problem to me. However, I recognize the benefits and importance of relationships with others (thank you internet!), so I treasure whatever friends I do have.

Hurting other people - it happens, but I don't let it bother me too much. If they don't like me working on the only thing I can perform somewhat well at, that's their problem. Like RyerOrdStar said, if they dislike you for your passion, they aren't your friends.

That said, people are a wonderful source of inspiration. Use that source to the fullest.

[Baron Impossible]

Social life is an illusion, drawing (or whatever medium you work in) is something real and solid. After a few hours spent drawing you're left with something physical, an object you can hold in your hand. After a day around people you have nothing.

You cannot put anything valuable on paper without going out with other people lots of days around

And somewhere in the middle of those outragous extremes lies the truth.

[Elwell]

A boy asked Aristotle how he became so wise and knowledgeable. Aristotle silently led the boy to the ocean. Both wading in, they reached a point where the boy could no longer touch the bottom. At this point, Aristotle grabbed the boy's shoulders and submerged the boy. He held the boy as he struggled and fought to come up for air. The boy believed he was going to drown at Aristotle's hands, but at the last moment, he was freed and Aristotle silently walked back to the beach.

Once both were on shore again, Aristotle asked the boy, "What did you want most while underwater?"

The boy replied, "I wanted to breathe!"

Aristotle said, "When you want knowledge as badly as you wanted to breathe, that is when you'll receive it."

Aristotle was a dick.

[GhostValkyrie]

Like many people on this website I'm trying to juggle a 9-5 job (one I don't like!), a girlfriend, a band, friends and my family (I have no kids), all while trying to make enough time to better myself as an artist and persue a career in art.

I aim to do a GOOD 15 hours of work per week done on my art. Sometimes reaching this many hours a week involves having to outright lie to friends, family or my girlfriend just so I can have some free time to get work done.

I don't feel 15 hours a week is enough to get to the level I'd like to but currently that's pretty much the maximum I can achieve without giving myself less than 6 hours sleep a night!

So how does everyone else deal with these problems without upsetting other people too much?
Is 15 hours a week any where near enough for me to be seeing a healthy progression with my work? Is something else going to have to give?

Give your girl a baby. Come 9 months from now she'll be busy and all you'll have to do is play with the child, eat dinner with them and help give 'em a bath. She'll be busy enough you can fade into the background. Even if this doesn't work ideally, you can stay up late at night and if your female counterpart approaches you negatively - reassure her you do it at night so you have time with them during the day. You're not just doing it for yourself, but so you can see her as well.

Use your child and lady as an excuse to avoid your friends. Technically, you won't be lying because they must come before your friends and if they don't understand that; they're not friends. Period. People in society forget about family too often and focus on people that say they're there but in reality they won't be. Blood comes first, as it should. You're not their family, and they're not yours.

As for the band; You're looking for a career in visual arts. You know it, they know it. You can always jam out with them every now and then, and I'm sure they know you're looking to make yourself into a better artist. No reason to lead them on chasing some pipe-dream. If they're serious about the band thing, you should let them go so they can find someone dedicated.

[Android]

its a bummer but the girlfriend has got to go...

when your a famous artists you will get lots of girls.


try incorporating your social life into your art,

make drawings of your girlfriend friends and family,
art takes sacrifices, you will need to learn to make the right ones, and learn from you mistakes when you make the wrong sacrifices.

[nicolas]

you know what will happen when you spend all your time drawing and stop interacting with people? you might become a great artist/draftsman but no one will hire you because the people who hire you are humans, and when you lack social skills you will not stay in anyones memory when it comes to gigs.

Its called soft skills, work on them, I am.

[TASmith]

Artists are a bit strange in that every art work is part of their social life. Instead of (in addition to) talking with the people around them, an artist wants to talk to someone (lots of people) living far off in a distant time and place. An artist working alone in his/her studio is actually conversing with a multitude, even if it's all in his/her head.

[Carnifex]

Social life is an illusion, drawing (or whatever medium you work in) is something real and solid. After a few hours spent drawing you're left with something physical, an object you can hold in your hand. After a day around people you have nothing.

except memories, experiences, fun and the knowledge that you aren't alone on this planet. man,that's like saying "who needs people,take a crap on your hand". same result.

[Portus]

This sounds cheesy but being an artist is a life style, you can't stop being an artist, it's up to you to take advantage of all opportunities you have.

[Irishdrunk]

when your a famous artists you will get lots of girls.

Might be my deviant little mind, but i'm picturing pose models with 'happy endings'. My interest in art just sky-rocketed.

Worked for Leonardo after all. (dicaprio, not da vinci)

[DavePalumbo]

i'm picturing pose models with 'happy endings'.

please everyone, don't be that guy. please just don't.

[Hyskoa]

ahahahaha... brilliant.
We can just start using hookers as models.
Oh right, that's already being done.

when your a famous artists you will get lots of girls.

Yes, but would you really want a girlfriend that ends every sentence with an upward inflection? Like every sentence has a questionmark?
[/family guy]

[Elwell]

Worked for Leonardo after all. (dicaprio, not da vinci)

Actually, Da Vinci as well, just not with girls. Leonardo seems to have valued physical attractiveness far more than artistic ability in his students.

[Thessaliad]

If you can't find any art jobs, get a job that will allow you to draw while you're at work. Night clerk at a hotel, gas station or toll booth will allow you to draw a lot. But working late could also get in the way of your social life, so then you'd be back to square 1 if you're not careful. tech support or phone sex could also be an alternative.

Look for jobs that involves waiting and/or doesn't require much mental effort while allowing you to stay stationary.

This. I work as a nurse at night, and even though the commute is an hour each way, I usually get 3-5 hours a night to practice drawing, during a 10 hour shift. On a nurse's wage.

I could make a lot more money elsewhere, but I found that trying to draw at home with kids and such was a waste of time.

Other night jobs? Security guard is a good job for downtime, or cardiac monitor tech. I did both, and was very productive.

[Clochette]

Nicolas made a good point.
Something else will probably happen as well : you will start a thread in the art discussion forum, complaining about not having fun anymore and having lost inspiration.
Life feeds art, is that hard to see? A friend of mine summed it up pretty well, saying that "you can't poop if you don't eat anything." Haha

All you need is balance. And please don't lie to the ones you love.

Also Vampire Cervix i'm honestly sad for you.

[Pezz]

When your boyfriend is your model, the two become one

PS you're allowed to take a day off once and a while, sheesh

[fionkell]

When your boyfriend is your model, the two become one

Hahahaha QFT.


The internet can a big time-sucker, if you allow it to become that, which is not good. Interactions in the real physical sense with people are incredibly important in all aspects of your life. It's been said numerous times already in this thread, too.

Neglecting real relationships with friends, family, partner will be detrimental to you and therefore your art, which you chose over them in the first place, and then where will you be?

[Costau]

*ahem

[Main Loop]

Give your girl a baby. Come 9 months from now she'll be busy and all you'll have to do is play with the child, eat dinner with them and help give 'em a bath. She'll be busy enough you can fade into the background. Even if this doesn't work ideally, you can stay up late at night and if your female counterpart approaches you negatively - reassure her you do it at night so you have time with them during the day. You're not just doing it for yourself, but so you can see her as well.

Use your child and lady as an excuse to avoid your friends. Technically, you won't be lying because they must come before your friends and if they don't understand that; they're not friends. Period. People in society forget about family too often and focus on people that say they're there but in reality they won't be. Blood comes first, as it should. You're not their family, and they're not yours.

As for the band; You're looking for a career in visual arts. You know it, they know it. You can always jam out with them every now and then, and I'm sure they know you're looking to make yourself into a better artist. No reason to lead them on chasing some pipe-dream. If they're serious about the band thing, you should let them go so they can find someone dedicated.

This almost reads like a parody of bad advice... I sure hope it is...

[BlightedArt]

*ahem

"Surrender to love" is one of the corniest things I've heard But Marko speaketh ofeth the truth...eth!

[Gavage]

I've found having more of a social life brings fresh inspirations in a lot of ways, and the generally encouraging feedback friends give on artwork can be... well, encouraging. Withdrawing from socialising does allow for a lot of time to practice and improve skills but it leaves the feeling that something is withering away too and that isn't a nice experience. I've been very reluctant to see anyone for most of this year (though it wasn't entirely by choice) and my art has improved in a lot of ways but I'm unhappy and my social skills have pretty much taken a swan dive off a cliff - I wouldn't advise anyone to live like a recluse for the sake of art practice unless they were 100% certain it wouldn't affect their mind negatively.

As for finding a way of justifying it to a loved one - there are only so many ways to tell them making artwork is more important than spending time with them. You can sweet-talk your way around it but that doesn't change much.

[BlightedArt]

I really hope this thread was useful to the OP> >_>

[Paulie]

Thanks for all the advice!

I've implemented some changes in my life since my original post. I decided not to reply in this thread again for about another two weeks, just to see how successful those changes have been and to see if they are realistic enough to maintain.

I'll post again then with my opinions of the advice given and how I feel I'm getting on.

Oh, and Elwell's right, Aristotle sounds like a complete nut job.

[nauvice]

GhostValkyrie Give your girl a baby

I laughed so hard reading that, then reading the rest it actually sounds like you're being serious

Clochette A friend of mine summed it up pretty well, saying that "you can't poop if you don't eat anything." Haha

I love that

[liam.c]

i have a feelling that what people are callign social life is probably diffrent for every one , defently dont avoid haveing friends and girlfriends and loved ones , but you may want to get rid of shity friends and activitys that are huge timewasters . i dont think any one would suggest cuting off from the world in any serious way ,and i dot think any artest or human for that matter would tell you to avoid falling in love lol .

learnign and devolopment in any field takes time and we have a finite amount of it , so if this is yoru focus , weather becoming a better artest , pilot , lawer , mother , father , lover , boxer , and that is your love , your going to find time for it , its not a sacrafice <and probably wrong to think of it that way > its a mater of focus , and a matter of love for it , theirs nothign sad about that , its beautiful and of value just liek anythign in life that is genuine . some times people wont or cant understand your choice of focus , many parrents, friends , girllfriends, boy friends who ever , wont get it at all till you make some money or gain recognition . some do and will help you cultivate it . some people may never get it , and some peopel may never make it no matter how much time thay spend tryign to learn <though you have a much much better chance >

you can be focused and attentive to learning and still keep a love for life , learning is part of that , learning is exprence , wich apepars to be what people are refreing to when thay say your screwing yoru self if you skip social life <i dont think thay are talkign about hiting the bar every night >

clo says you have to feed your art with life , ofcorse that is the truth ! seeing and attention are important in that way , payign attention to liveing and not cuting your self off fromt the world is the way , every thing we do has a visual element so pay attention and be open to exprence <by exprence im not talkign about smokeing the weeds every day with some boreing ass peopel that spend all their tiem waiting for futurerama to come on , or spending all your time at the bar wanting to turn into hemingway or somethign > go do art shit , and include your friends and famlie in that <then its their choice > buy yoru dad a watter color pad and ask if he wants to come with you to the beach lol , theres no reason you cant invite yoru frends to go check out a gallery , or musieum <not all will go for it but thats cool too and thay will get that yoru still out in the world liveing and jsut doing other shit >

some social activitys dont bring much to humans except boredom and misery , some people like thease activitys more then others , you can safely avoid thease people and activitys , with out ruleing out other social activitys and inter actions , you dont have to avoid liveing , to avoid stupid shit

make the most of your time like people suggested , bring a pen or pencil with you allways , and a sketch book or leave a ream of paper in your car so you allways have some . go to a party and if nothings happign you got a stack of live models you can sketch from and maby get that girlfirend thats intrested in waht your doing <insted of the ones thats intrested only in whats new at the clothing store > or liek other suggested make yoru social group other peopel that are intrested in the same things , hit the gallery opeingns or sketch crawls .

probably the most important thing you can do infact the only thign you can do , is pay attention and do art . probably the worst thing you can do is try and be an "artest' and not do any art .

for me i have friends that went in diffrent directions , some really loved waht i think is pretty worthless , or at least for waht i want to do , but im fine with it if thay want to smoke weed all day and hang out with people thay cant stand because thay smoke the weeds too lol ,or the friends that hit the bar try and pick up chicks and get in fist fights every night, some went the music route and play all the time , some got married and had kids and that became their focus , some joined the corprate world and that was their focus , its cool with me , but i have diffrent direction and focus , ones not nessarly better then the other in the im just doing some shit inbetween being born and dieing kinda way . we got about 80 years on avrage so smile pick what you want and love and do it and dont feel bad about it, have fun enjoy life and enjoy the exprence of art , wich is really a recordign of the exprencene of liveing and what it is to be human

[LearningCurve]

Relationships, like anything, can be both negative and positive. Unfortunately most of mine have been negative, but thats just me.

Try not to "burn bridges behind you" as the saying goes. But sometimes you may have to just stop hanging out with friends you once considered your closest "pals". Maybe, maybe not. It depends on how healthy the relationship is and how you prioritize your art. There are several stages of our lives where we are bound to lose and gain new friends; high school, college, post college (whether that be a career or graduate school), ect.

Ive found my best friends are the ones that I can "disappear" and not talk to for days, weeks, months, or years, and when we meet again there are no ill feelings. Though I've been jokingly referred to as "the batman" for pulling such disappearing acts its just my nature. I withdraw and create, then go back out into the world. I wouldn't reccomend it to others, but its how I've managed it personally. I can't maintain long term romantic relationships like this, I've got a lot of people wondering "hey whatever happened to that guy" which isnt necessarily a good thing, but the balance is always a work in progress.

Ive just found the majority of people in my neck of the woods dont understand the whole "I want to create" thing if it doesn't involve guitars, rap lyrics, or spray paint. Everytime Ive tried to explain it directly people get offended by the idea that I'd rather be alone and create than "hang out", so Ive stopped even talking about it and just do.

Its difficult to draw while in social situations for me. I just don't like the attention from others or the distraction from what I'm doing. If I'm not with friends its one thing, but if you are in a situation with one on one interaction its just usually not an option. That is of course, ignoring the old "let me draw you" pick up line. Not to mention as a 20 something male carrying around a backpack often attracts attention from the wrong people; police assume you are selling drugs and/or doing graffiti and/or otherwise causing trouble, at least where I'm from. Though for a few years I will say I carried around a notepad and a pen at all times, Ive fallen away from the habit as Ive spent less time "out" anyways, and when I am its usually not far from my car with tons of strewn about paper and pens.

Everyone will have their own way of dealing with the struggle between art and relationships. In the end you have to have both, how you manage them is all on your own. Easily one of the most interesting topics Ive seen in this section.

[MiniGoth]

Planning. Having limited social interaction time, I plan fun events with friends around my schedule.

The day before Thanksgiving, I went to see Deadmou5 with an old friend and my SO. Met two new friends there.

Once I finish unpacking, I'm going to have an arts party involving all of these empty cardboard boxes and some poster paint.

When time is limited, make it count. I can't just drop everything and 'hang out' whenever. Real friends understand this. I'm often away from home for months at a time. My SO understands this - and I try to call every night when I'm away.

Balance.