3 art lies we need to kill - NOW

Hey! Happy Wednesday. How’s your week going? If it’s going great, I’ve come to add to it. If it’s not going that good, here’s a little pick me up for you.

Let me ask you something: has someone in your life told you it’s impossible to create a successful career as an artist? That you’ll be sad, lonely, or poor? (or worse, all three?) I know I have.

I also know it’s not true.

Look, scared people lie. To themselves and to others. Your family and friends mean well when they tell you this, but they’re just showing how scared THEY are. You don’t need to be.

These are the three lies we need to kill as artists (or entrepreneurs, or just… people not willing to accept the status quo as a way of life.)

And when I say we must kill them, I mean

• don’t believe them

• don’t repeat them

• don’t assign them to others

• don’t make them your life

Lie #1: The Starving Artist

You know I had to start here. I can’t explain how much I hate the idea that we can’t live off of art without STARVING. Especially because I know enough artists (personally and in history) who prove how wrong this is.

What I hate most about this idea is how it creeps into young people’s minds, convincing them to pursue a traditional career they’re not half as passionate about as they are about their art. Then, they have limited time left to create, and their artistic output suffers. If you do this, you may be able to put food on the table, but your soul may be starving instead.

Artists need money to live. We need to leave behind the idea that it’s somehow noble to suffer financially - this applies to everyone, but artists specifically have this stereotype to fight against.

Suffering, in general, doesn’t create better art. It creates burnt out artists. It creates frustrated artists. It creates starving artists.

By suffering, you’re not adding anything good to the world, nor to your life.

Earning money for artists will never look as it does for people with a 9-5 job (and thank god it won’t!) Earning money as an artist comes from project-based payments, from commissions, from freelancing, from selling pieces.

Here’s the thing - you CAN have financial success as an artist. But it takes more than being “good”. It takes networking, marketing, and creating content. The internet makes it easier than ever to make money as an artist. But we have to do our part to get in front of the people who are willing to pay for our work, talent, art. More on that in next editions!

Lie #2: Divine Inspiration

Listen. No muse is going to come save you.

Good artists don’t wait for inspiration. They work to get inspiration.

People think artists are “talented”, but 99% of the time, what we call talent is simply daily practice. Work done on days when you have an overflow of ideas and on days when you stare at the blank page, canvas, room, etc. feeling like you have nothing to say.

No artist got good from only working when they’re inspired. You wouldn’t expect a business to succeed if the store opened only when the owner felt like it. You wouldn’t expect a doctor to save lives if they only went into the operation room when they were in the mood. Then why are you expecting to succeed as an artist if you work only when you feel inspired? You can’t expect to reach success if you do this.

I know some days, creating is really hard. It happens to me, more than I’d want to admit. On those days, it’s even more important to start. Once you get going, you’ll find inspiration (most of the time) strikes. But when it does, it has to find you working, like Picasso said.

Doing The Work is not the glamorous part of being an artist. But it’s the only way.

Lie #3: The Lonely Genius

Art is not a lonely endeavor.

In fact, loneliness kills art. But this is not what we’re told.

I know you can picture this image: the artist, locked in their room, working furiously while great ideas come onto their minds and possess them to paint, write, dance, create. Or you’ve heard the stories of authors hiding in cabins in the woods to work undisturbed for months, ending with a great novel that becomes a bestseller.

Do artists need some isolation from the world when they’re working? Sure. We need the concentration. And most artists I know are easily distracted.

But if your ideas all come from inside your mind, it’s like putting a glass over a candle: you deprive it of oxygen and put out its flame.

Yes, you need to trust your mind, and come up with your own ideas.

But no work of art is a one-person show, even if they seem like it. Don’t underestimate the power of co-creating ideas, or collaborating on pieces with other artists.

• A cool conversation may turn into your next poem.

• A picture your friend took might inspire you to paint it, adding your own ideas to it.

• The play you saw on the theater may be the inspiration for your next song.

• A poem you wrote might work as lyrics to a song your friend is composing.

• You mentioning your book to your friend may result in them offering to paint your cover.

The possibilities are endless. What I’m trying to say is, artists need friends. We need to consume what others create so we can remix it, and turn it into something new. We need conversations that spark ideas. We need companion when our own work makes us feel like going crazy.

One brain is hardly a genius. But put five of them together, and you have a mastermind.

In summary, how do you kill each of these art lies?

1. The Starving Artist: give your art your all. And find creative ways to turn them into services or products. Learn marketing, learn networking.

2. Divine Inspiration: show up, every day, whether you feel like it or not. Small efforts compound. And inspiration must find you working.

3. The Lonely Genius: make friends. Love them well. Create with them.

I would love to hear about your experience with each of these. Has someone said them to you before? Have you believed them? Have you broken those beliefs? Hit reply and let me know!

As always, you can also let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to read about. I’ll make sure to write it.

I hope you have a great rest of your week. There’s half of it left! Do something wonderful with it!

-Valeria, The Friendly Artist