The Defense of Art As Career?

[cnorgaard85]

Hello everyone,

I'll be brief:
I have a talent for drawing. I have no hope or motivation for doing anything with it what so ever because of "reasonable" arguments that hey, money for an apartment, kids and life is necessary.

In the world of religion there's a word for defending beliefs: Apologetics. In Greek απολογειρα literally means a defense. It's a typical Christian word, being featured in the 2nd epistle of Peter - he encourages everyone to be ready to defend their beliefs.

I'm here to ask you for a rational defense of art as a career. It surprises me that I haven't found any books about this, especially in a time when BBC is creating documentaries like "How Art Made the World". Virtually every other field will have pages up and down justifying the practice of their fields.

Look here, I'm married to a concert pianist. A concert pianist in Denmark earns $6-7000 a month. My friend is a classically trained violinist. These are art careers, yet I never hear about anything like that for visual arts. There are loads of books on classical music as a practise, even some that are specifically written to defend it (which is necessary today as it is getting less popular, but back 500 years ago they did it too).

What rational arguments can you give me or refer me to? I'd really like to get my fire back. I am especially interested in the rational arguments for art making a critical, irreplaceable, invaluable difference in the development of the world. How has art shaped the world, factually speaking?

Thank you for reading this far - and thank you again if you decide to chime in.

[Velocity Kendall]

Top 5 Deathbed regrets:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandsty...s-of-the-dying

one other thing, there are 7billion people on the earth, and every 12 years another billion is added to that number. do you really need kids?

[Star Eater]

lol "Look here"....ok then.

Honestly why do you care if you have no hope of doing anything with your self proclaimed talent?

This sounds a lot like homework to me.

[bcarman]

For whom and why would such a defense be written? Those who are converted don't need it and those who do need it we don't want around.

[Stoat]

Hm. Not sure I understand what you're asking.

I suppose there are some people out there so blazingly talented that they just do whatever art they want and somebody manages to sell it for them.

Most of us, though, end up taking orders. Making compromises. Smooching client butt. Arguing about money and deadlines. Making changes we don't like. Doing paperwork. Waking up to an alarm clock.

In other words, when art is your job, big parts of it are still like any other job. I've had a very enjoyable career in art, but I have to tell you -- there were many, many days I wished I did something else for a living and then came home fresh nights and weekends to paint for the hell of it.

[Arshes Nei]

So let me figure this out.

You're an adult, where at this point in your life you should be able to research and make rational decisions.
You're a married adult where you made a decision to have a contractual relationship with another adult.

However, you need us to make rational decisions on whether or not to make art as a career?

[QueenGwenevere]

Defending visual art as a career: You can make a living at it. If you're skilled at both the art and business aspects, you can make a really good living at it.

Do you really need any other defense? If the question is "Can you make a living off of visual art", then the answer is yes, yes you can. This forum is full of people who do.

[Kolbenito]

Visual Art is a craft, the lessons that go into studying it are passed down through time and you can really only learn it by years of practicing it with your hands. That has value and justifies it as a pursuit all by itself. Another way to look at is that the Renaissance produced achievements in many fields particularly science and medicine, but what is it most strongly associated with?

[Dusty]

I can't give you a defense that hasn't been listed above.

I never once thought rationally about it. I just knew that all I wanted to do was art and all I wanted to be was an artist. I didn't accept shit jobs as my final lot in life.
I knew people could make a living at it and that was my goal from a very early age. But rationality? No, there was no rationality. There was only "This is what I do and if I fail, I will only try harder".

And yes, I did have a couple years of no work and immense credit card debt (that I did, in fact, pay off).
Such is the life.

[JeffX99]

Lucian Freud did pretty well: Lucian Freud Will.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

In other news: virtually everything that is created is either designed by an artist or sold by one. The hard thing to do is come up with an example where this isn't the case. Give it a shot.

[Shorinji_Knight]

A defense of art? When you have paintings selling for $80 million+ I think that is defense enough. Plus visual art defends itself through visuals rather than being relient on words.

[sone_one]

I have a talent for drawing. I have no hope or motivation for doing anything with it ...
...
What rational arguments can you give me or refer me to? I'd really like to get my fire back. I am especially interested in the rational arguments for art making a critical, irreplaceable, invaluable difference in the development of the world. How has art shaped the world, factually speaking?

lol

you think anyone of us is going to broadcast the secret of beeing always happy and personally aswell as financially successful with creating art? there are just as many threads regarding, how tough and frustrating making art for a living can be, because it would become too obvious that theres a secret formula, if we wouldnt create them. its just a matter of disguise because we dont want others to know... oops.



on a more serious note... your wife is earning 6k a month and youre still worried about expenses. maybe you can satisfy other needs your family has? trying to come close to that in whatever profession is going to be tough. and creating art takes a lot of effort that aint going to be paid for quite some time, before you can go for the money jobs and even then... 6k is possible but unlikely on a 12 month per year, year after year basis if you aint no really tough duracel professional.

[Stoat]

Lucian Freud did pretty well: Lucian Freud Will.

Yeah, well...I have an idea if his name had been Lucian Smith, his climb to spectacular riches would've been a bit less certain.

[cnorgaard85]

Lucian Freud did pretty well: Lucian Freud Will.

In other news: virtually everything that is created is either designed by an artist or sold by one. The hard thing to do is come up with an example where this isn't the case. Give it a shot.

Thank you for the reference. Also, thank you, Velocity Kendall, for posting that article.

Jeff, I realize posting the following link will infuriate an artist/designer/any craftsman, but how many of these names do you think are artists?
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortu...500/2012/ceos/

It's true that designers play an important role. I've worked as a designer for many years, and that's actually my primary field of education. But often they are bound by engineering constraints. Design theory is all-encompassing, but in business life they just end up being the ones putting a bit of make-up on a product (while engineers are often considered the "real" designers.) Sorry to put it in such antagonistic words, just putting it as clearly as possibly but with all friendliness


I'm especially interested in specific examples where visual art has been *the* crucial component in producing something that truly changed the world. I say visual art, not design. For example, the iPhone is beautiful but many of the reasons why it is as it is come out of technical and engineering thoughts going back all the way to the 1970's and prophesied about by usability experts long before it came on the market. Then why change the world by way of visual art, when it seems the crucial thinking happens elsewhere? (And that's what I would like you to disprove, not that I'm trying to burst the religious aspect of being an artist ("those who are converted" as mentioned above).

[squidmonk3j]

I reject your rationale, and substitute it with own:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Myth-Sisyphu...2929539&sr=8-1

[Elwell]

Apologetics

Yeah, you lost me right there.

These are art careers, yet I never hear about anything like that for visual arts.

You have GOT to be kidding me.

How has art shaped the world, factually speaking?

http://www.pbs.org/howartmadetheworld/
Now do the rest of your own damned homework.

[bill618]

Rule #1 Don’t think a rational approach to a visual arts career exists, let alone a rational defense for it. You either have a ‘mad’ desire to paint pretty, or gritty, pictures or you don’t. If you do, you will pursue the muse at any cost.

You can always pick up the violin and put in your 10,000 hours, instead, or become a defense attorney.

[sone_one]

I say visual art, not design.

erm... what? you base your decission on picking up art-creation on the facts of how many forbes 500 artists there are that did NOT AT ALL design their product in any way? whats your point?

[edit] just dont do it... you need no f*ing excuse to avoid it.

[Shorinji_Knight]

People make a living doing art. That’s the only defense any career needs. What you’re asking for is us to validate art, which is totally different.
Art is valid because it helps people to express and to react.

[dpaint]

Take your bull shit and go away, this forum is for grownups.

[themegagod]

What rational defense is needed besides making a decent living, doing what you "love"? It's one of the few career fields where you can pursue it because you love it, not because it pays well.

If you want to do something, if you are passionate about doing something, find a way to make money from it, and do it. What would be a better rational?

Why do it?
why do anything? eventually we all die,and what does it amount to?
If you are a lawyer and you win a case which is of such importance an amendment is made and it's entered into a law text book and is used for future cases to come, is that worth doing? If you are a concert pianist (as you say your wife is) yet never compose work, only play previously composed songs, beautifully, does your life now have meaning? a rock star with crowds of adoring fan, is he anymore important than the accountant who handles his money and makes sure he can still afford to play?
why do anything?

Art is a bit selfish, and a bit selfless. selfish in the sense that for many it is a route to immortality, and for a select few an easy means to millions. Art is fun, and it's also showing an audience what it is you personally see- you force the world to experience the same moment while they experience your work. that is all pretty self fulfilling.
how is it self less? 90% of the time, and artist is working in customer service. something is requested of you, and if you want to make a living, you do it. Like any job you often are doing something that you don't want to. But you make someone else happy (or at least hope to). you try to allow the customer to experience a certain emotion. you are touching people. And you are doing it with your blood sweat and tears. You spend hours on a piece, and sometime a client doesn't want it by the time of it's completion (think of the mona lisa!). this is all done for someone else.
so logically why do it?

Answer that yourself. If you want to, you do it, like anything else. Is it illogical? not really anymore than becoming a doctor.

How has art effected the world? Honestly, depending on your definition of art, civilization only exist by art. if you are being more specific and you are referring to only visual art, then still, think about what ever you are looking at right now; be it your computer monitor, your desk, the clothes you are wearing- at some point a visual artist will effect that product if not create it. You may not define it as art, the same way I have issues with http://www.thedailybeast.com/newswee...t-s-ideas.html being art. does it mean it isn't? ask the buyer.

[blogmatix]

I only started making any progress at all when I accepted I would likely never make so much as a cent from art, and would have to spend my life doing one shitty job after the other while drawing in my free time.

Of course, I am lucky: I was clever enough to never get married, I have no children and can afford to live like I'm a happy go lucky college student for the rest of my life. Still, I now and then feel a sense of failure when I look at how all my old school mates, even the ones who never went to college like I did, earn four or five or, quite literally ten or twenty times as much as I do, while I cannot afford a hamburger and often go around dressed in clothes that are coming apart at the seams.

But the very thought of doing their kind of job and earning their kind of money, and then having to wave goodbye to enough free time and energy to draw (and indulge in many other hobbies), is more than I can bear.

Anyway, I cannot tell the OP what to do, but my solution to the problem of defending art as a career is not to defend it, seeing as it isn't my career and I'll probably never be good enough to make it one. Still, I'll do as I damn well please, and owe nobody an explanation.

[Kolbenito]

Thank you for the reference. Also, thank you, Velocity Kendall, for posting that article.

Jeff, I realize posting the following link will infuriate an artist/designer/any craftsman, but how many of these names do you think are artists?
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortu...500/2012/ceos/

It's true that designers play an important role. I've worked as a designer for many years, and that's actually my primary field of education. But often they are bound by engineering constraints. Design theory is all-encompassing, but in business life they just end up being the ones putting a bit of make-up on a product (while engineers are often considered the "real" designers.) Sorry to put it in such antagonistic words, just putting it as clearly as possibly but with all friendliness


I'm especially interested in specific examples where visual art has been *the* crucial component in producing something that truly changed the world. I say visual art, not design. For example, the iPhone is beautiful but many of the reasons why it is as it is come out of technical and engineering thoughts going back all the way to the 1970's and prophesied about by usability experts long before it came on the market. Then why change the world by way of visual art, when it seems the crucial thinking happens elsewhere? (And that's what I would like you to disprove, not that I'm trying to burst the religious aspect of being an artist ("those who are converted" as mentioned above).

Turning that on it's head nobody will know or care who the top earning CEOs of the fortune 500 are in 100 years with a couple of exceptions, but the works of the good illustrators and painters will probably still be in demand in some form long after that.

I think your problem is seeing visual art as having no function. Instead imagine what the world would look like if there was nobody that could paint or draw. Sure there is art that has no function other than being nice to look at, it is there for the same reason we have things like music, movies, sports and vacations.

[tobbA]

Imagine walking into a bookstore where all the book covers are blank and have their titles written in comic sans on the front...

[Kamber Parrk]

Hello everyone,

I'll be brief:
I have a talent for drawing. . . .

Really. . . .

[QueenGwenevere]

Imagine if movies and TV shows consisted of a static camera filming actors on a bare stage circa 1900 because OH LOOK, NO STORYBOARDS OR PRODUCTION ART.

Heck, imagine if there were no animated features or Saturday morning cartoons or daily funnies or comic books or anime or video games or card games or children's books or... Yeah.

[TinyBird]

Imagine if movies and TV shows consisted of a static camera filming actors on a bare stage circa 1900 because OH LOOK, NO STORYBOARDS OR PRODUCTION ART.

Heck, imagine if there were no animated features or Saturday morning cartoons or daily funnies or comic books or anime or video games or card games or children's books or... Yeah.

And imagine if there were no art in buildings and architecture, no gargoyles or stained glass windows or wall paintings or those weird owl sculptures I keep finding around buildings in Helsinki... (which may go into OPs argument about design, but I really just love looking buildings that have art in them, rather than gray blocks even if both work just the same)

[bill618]

Imagine walking into a bookstore where all the book covers are blank and have their titles written in comic sans on the front...

Imagine judging all books by their covers.

[JeffX99]

Eh...not really worth further discussion...we see art and design from diametrically opposed points of view. In my world visual artists and designers envision the future so that others may craft it, direct it and respond to the visions they create.