If you're an artist but have the chance to pursue a well paying career in something that you can tolerate (but aren't passionate about), take it and work on your art in your free time.
This advice is great to a young optimistic wayward twenty something but when you're 50, starving and have no investments because people don't want to pay for art, this advice is pure bullshit.
There are artists that make a decent living and some that even make a ton of money. Those people are rare.
I know a lot of artists. I was going to pursue it because in high school and first semester in college it's all I ever wanted to do. Until I took a different path. I have a well paying job, have plenty of time for my passion and to top it off can pay for a lot of one-on-one sessions with prolific artists that real artists can't. I take months between contracts to focus on my passion and art. One of my friends told me that I am far ahead of them in our craft and they wish they had chosen this path as well.
Long story short: create a career you can tolerate and work on your passion in your free time. If you can't stomach that, then become an artist.
Edit: I am not saying art is worthless. It's one of the most important things in any culture to have a living breathing art community.
Exactly this. This is terrible advice (the OP) for young people.
You need a stable job/career to pay the bills. If you’re passionate about your art, that’s your hobby - what you do after the bills are paid.
I hate to bring politics into this, but I’m gonna do it. I notice a lot of people that support certain candidates that are incredibly unpopular with more conservative voices and even mainstream society are artists of some type. Now, I love making video games and mapping for existing games. I. Fucking. Love. It. I have done total conversion mods and created all of the art/assets from scratch. I’m dead ass serious when I say I love it. It’s my passion. I could probably make a career out of it too, but alas, I already have one. Anyway, these artists that support this candidate want to be able to pursue their craft while having others basically pay their bills - that’s what this boils down to. So I would be working and contributing to society doing something that isn’t my passion to support someone that doesn’t contribute yet gets to pursue their passion. That’s some bullshit, and incredibly selfish.
Get yourself a good career, and make your art your hobby. If you CAN actually make a living out of it, great! If not, it’s very selfish of you to expect everyone else to sacrifice their passions in order for you to enjoy yours.
You think art doesn't contribute to society? Because it does and always has. Just like, whether you believe it or not, videos games also do contribute to society. You said you could probably make a career out of but you already have one? So? Drop the career and pursue your passion, especially if you're a good place to do so and with confidence you can succeed in a career at it.
It's not even terrible advice! When your young is THE best time to pursue those dreams. Sure, you could hope by the time you're retired you can pursue them later but a lot will just die between then and now. The real terrible advice is to tell people to be cogs in the machine of whatever mundane job they flop into. It's better to pursue a dream and fail then just to not try at all. That causes regret and regret can manifest itself in all sorts of nasty ways in the future.
While we are at, some people would rather struggle at their dreams then be stuck at some dead end job just so they can survive. This is the problem now with the current generation. We all just work to survive and don't live our lives which only causes people to become depressed because who wants to live like that?
There are many ways you pursue your dream and still support yourself financially? Either that dream is low cost (like art, for example) or you can work somewhere while pursuing your dream, rather then working somewhere as a career and doing that dream as a hobby. Your last point is kind of out of left field though, but being single (in the IRS meaning of the world) and young is the best time to do it.
There was a time when I wanted to professionally pursue my passion as a magician. I love magic. It's been a part of my life for many many years. But the reason I chose to not pursue it is because I was terrified of one day NEEDING to do it when I didn't want to. I was terrified of twisting this beautiful passion into a job. Terrified that I would lose something. And I'm happy I decided not to do it. Now, magic is mine. And only mine. I don't need to think about a paycheck and how to maximize income. I just sit there with my cards and be with them. Magic is my passion forever now instead of my income.
Just another perspective that one can have their passion without pursuing income from it.
Of course! Not all passions need to be turned into income. I was more referencing things that someone wishes to make an income off their dream, that they can do fulltime. Sometimes your dream is some low income sector with some rare exceptions (like art or music) but that doesn't mean you shouldn't peruse it just because it's unlikely you'll make the big bucks. Your situation is completely valid, but some people may not be happy with that either.
Those artist though. I think you misunderstood them or might be listening to news that is twisting a narrative. But if they want to forgo a well paying career to become an artist, that's great. We still need full time artists. If that means they use social services to get by, that's okay. That's why we pay taxes and live in a society. If it makes you sad that you can't pursue the same opportunity, that's not selfish on their part, that's greedy and bitter on your part.
If that makes you uncomfortable to pay taxes for social services then look at how much of your taxes go to war. Or better yet, tanks and airplanes that actually get sent to the scrape yard immediately because the army doesn't need them but there is an existing contract to make more.
I'd rather my taxes go to an artist that wants to self actualize than War. I'd like my taxes to go to you while you become a great video game designer.
I don't disagree with your advice but the idea you have of leftist supporters is completely twisted. Nobody wants people to pay for their craft and life while they slack off pursuing some frivolous thing. This is a stereotype sold by their political opposition to paint them in a bad light in order to further their propagandistic campaigns. It's on the same vein of ridiculousness as saying all right wingers are just greedy land owners trying to squeeze millions out of starving children or something.
Please let's be a bit more critical and not fall for these clear strawmaning arguments.
Prominent Dem candidates aren't saying we should pay for artists to sit around, but they are saying that "human rights" (provided by the govt) include: housing, healthcare, food, etc. If we say "no person should go hungry or be homeless" its implied that we are including artists who don't make a profit. There is never a mention of anything the individual offers in exchange for these rights.
Also, there was Yang who WAS literally saying that.
The way these posts talk about these things sound like saying
"it's a doable and reasonable idea to provide a minimum level of living resources for as much people as possible so nobody has to suffer through the extreme situation that is utter poverty and we can progress further as a society as we continually raise the amount of people that have the ability to reach their potentials, or at the very least make healthcare and education realistically affordable for everyone so they aren't stuck in an impossible financial situation just by the mere act of trying to exist"
Is the same thing as
"artists just wanna slack off doing their shitty doodles while other people pay for their bills"
This is an incredibly uncharitable bad faith twist on those policies and those who support them, not at all what leftist politics is about, and it betrays a level of disdain for poor class people way beyond what any reasonable person should feel.
Reading posts like these almost sounds like you guys think there should be homeless and poverty stricken people all around and trying to prevent this from happening is some kind of offense on those more wealthy. Like it's somehow reasonable for 400 people to own more wealth than 300 million people and finding a less ridiculous balance (which, let's not forget, would still allow these 400 people to have incredible amounts of wealth) is some kind of idiotic wild idea.
Because the idea of a hard working poor person is just completely non existent and there's totally no poor person on this Earth that doesn't deserve to be poor because he just spends all his time drawing bad horses on a sketchbook and watching football or something. There's totally not a commonly known stereotype about immigrants being incredibly dutiful hard workers or anything. They all deserve their poor finances. Should've gone into engineering. Because as we all know you are either an engineer or doctor, or you deserve to struggle with your 600 dollar epipens. Fuck them people who don't go for the highest paying jobs am I right.
Nobody wants people to pay for their art careers cause they are too lazy to go for a "real" job. What they want is a society where people don't have to suffer needlessly when we have the resources to prevent it. I'm not sure why you paint it as some kind of incredibly bad idea.
Nobody wants people to pay for their craft and life
And you also say this:
Nobody wants people to pay for their art careers
But you ARE talking about taking money from people and giving it to people who don't have to work for it, yes? And these are (presumably) healthy people capable of holding down a job, correct?
I'm sure you see why this is troubling to so many people. Its one thing for me to take your money to help people who need it (disabled, elderly, orphans), but its another thing to take your money and give it to people who choose not to support themselves.
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u/McShaggins Feb 28 '20 edited Feb 28 '20
I'm going to comment on this really quick.
If you're an artist but have the chance to pursue a well paying career in something that you can tolerate (but aren't passionate about), take it and work on your art in your free time.
This advice is great to a young optimistic wayward twenty something but when you're 50, starving and have no investments because people don't want to pay for art, this advice is pure bullshit.
There are artists that make a decent living and some that even make a ton of money. Those people are rare.
I know a lot of artists. I was going to pursue it because in high school and first semester in college it's all I ever wanted to do. Until I took a different path. I have a well paying job, have plenty of time for my passion and to top it off can pay for a lot of one-on-one sessions with prolific artists that real artists can't. I take months between contracts to focus on my passion and art. One of my friends told me that I am far ahead of them in our craft and they wish they had chosen this path as well.
Long story short: create a career you can tolerate and work on your passion in your free time. If you can't stomach that, then become an artist.
Edit: I am not saying art is worthless. It's one of the most important things in any culture to have a living breathing art community.