This Issue's Contents:
I. Living the So-Called “Artist Life”
II. Tips on Making a Living
III. Meaning, Purpose, and Existential Troubles
IV. Coping with A.I. (and other tech)
V. Miscellaneous
VI. Inciting Excerpt
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I. Living the So-Called “Artist Life”
In this essay, writer Lama Alshami discusses the pressure to do something more “practical” that those drawn the arts are likely to feel in a world that values stability, financial security and traditionalism.
Art Above Everything
Stephanie Elizondo is a professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and author of the new book, Art Above Everything: One Woman’s Global Exploration of the Joys and Torments of a Creative Life.
The book contains her interviews with artists — writers, visual artists, and performers from 10 nations — who have devoted their lives to creative pursuits. In these discussions, she poses the question: Is the pursuit of art worth it?
Check out the article to get her answer to that question, along with some information about the book.
II. Tips on Making a Living
Being an artist looks fun, but the average painter, sculptor, and performance artist can barely afford to eat. That said, a small percentage of artists seem to earn thousands every year, which for lack of a better term, is something approaching “successful.” So, who are these artists and how are they managing to live their financially secure artistic dreams?
Mathieu Briand is one of these artists. Based in Paris and Melbourne, he’s a sculpture whose installation pieces get exhibited all over the world—which at times earns him a five-figure salary per month. Here is his advice for making it as artist.
The Working Artist: Why a Steady Job Fuels Your Best Work
For an artist, a steady job can be seen as a compromise, but it can also be a strategic advantage, a powerful catalyst for sustained creativity and personal well-being. Engaging in work outside the studio or rehearsal space provides the critical structure, financial stability and mental refreshment essential for crucial artistic results. This approach is not about abandoning your passion; it’s about building a solid foundation that empowers your art to thrive, free from the crushing pressure of immediate monetization and the exhaustion of constant creative demands.
Here’s What It Takes for Creatives to Sustain a Career
In Stacey D’Erasmo’s new book, The Long Run, she interviews artists who are late in their careers. What interested D’Erasmo was not what got these artists going, but what kept them going over decades of life. Romanticized ideas of the starving artist, she says, ignore the reality that art is made “by real people with real needs in real places.” Those include financial realities, which often require balancing one’s art with another job.
In this interview, D’Erasmo discusses the myth of the "starving artist," the utility of having a "day job," and coming to an arts career later in life.
The Truth About ‘Starving Artists’ And How to Avoid This Trap
It's not clear where the notion of the "starving artist" came from, but Jen Rudolph, creator of The 2% Signature System™ and The 6 Figure Freedom Formula, says artists have the choice not to starve themselves and still make an impact on the world. Further, she states that the whole idea of “being discovered” is a myth, and that every actor (or other artist) has to put themselves out there instead of waiting around for their big break.
Real Artists Don’t Starve, They Thrive — How to Succeed at a Creative Life
Jeff Goins is a blogger, podcaster, and best-selling author of five books, including The Art of Work and Real Artists Don’t Starve. In this interview, he speaks to how artists can most effectively cultivate their ideas, promote their work, and bring home a solid paycheck in the New Renaissance of today’s world.
III. Meaning, Purpose, and Existential Troubles
Existential dread is often described as intense feelings of anxiety, depression, or loneliness that arise from contemplating one’s mortality. One potential way to cope with existential dread is to develop a strong sense of purpose.
In this interview from Psychology Today, psychologist and author Michael Friedman explores the connection between purpose and existential pressure with David “Randy” Blythe – frontman of the Grammy-nominated heavy metal band Lamb of God. Blythe recently published a new book, Just Beyond The Light: Making Peace With the Wars Inside Our Head, in which he discusses how he developed his sense of purpose and explains how his purpose-driven life helps him cope with feelings of existential dread.
What to Do When You Feel Like Nothing Matters and So Why Bother
Why does your work matter when the world appears to be coming apart, protests have gone global and yet still institutional racism persists? Throw in climate change and the situation seems helpless. How do you motivate yourself when you can’t find the energy for more? These are the questions Jennifer Louden explores in her new book, Why Bother?
Get her take on this problem and learn more about Louden’s book in this article.
How to Overcome an Existential Crisis
If thinking about your future fills you with anxiety or depression, there’s a name for that: existential dread. There’s nothing easy or fun about these sorts of inner conflicts. But they’re an important part of being human—and a common experience for many artists. This article from the Cleveland Clinic offers a primer on existential crises along with some tips to help keep feelings of dread at bay.
IV. Coping with A.I. (and other tech)
Like many artists, Loni Stark has been quietly grappling with the rise of generative AI. At first, she didn’t want to share that she was struggling. She wasn’t sure who she was as an artist anymore. Its presence destabilized her.
But after a long, rich conversation with a group of fellow artists, something shifted. Find out what changed in this article and let me know if you concur with her conclusions.
V. Miscellaneous
A study by researchers in Belgium has found that artists have structurally different brains.
In the small study, researchers compared brain scans of 21 art students to 23 non-artists. The detailed scans revealed that the artists had significantly more grey matter in an area of the brain called the precuneus in the parietal lobe.
"This region is involved in a range of functions but potentially in things that could be linked to creativity, like visual imagery - being able to manipulate visual images in your brain, combine them and deconstruct them.
The research, published in the journal NeuroImage, suggests that an artist's talent could be innate. However, training and environmental upbringing also play crucial roles in artistic ability, the authors report. Thus, as in many areas of science, the exact interplay of nature and nurture remains unclear.
Do You Need to Be Hot to Make It as an Artist?
Over the past few years, people have floated the idea that social media could be democratizing access to and exposure in the art world, a notoriously elitist industry. While this may be true for some artists whose work has been discovered online, others feel a new parallel hierarchy of “hot” artists has emerged in its place.
Artists are also not the only category of people who feel that being conventionally attractive will give them a leg up in their industry. Beautiful people are more likely to get hired, get paid more and receive better performance evaluations. Still, the crossing into influencer territory seems to ramp up pressure on young artists. Those who don’t have industry contacts or a Masters of Fine Arts degree may feel like their future career trajectory requires building a social following. The irony, however, is that the tactics that bring you virality are also frowned upon by old, established institutions.
VI. Inciting Excerpt
"Freedom can only be obtained through an understanding of basic order. Basic order is underlying all life. It is not to be found in the institutions men have made. Those who have lived and grown at least to some degree in the spirit of freedom are our creative artists. They have a wonderful time. They must keep the world going. They must leave their trace in some way, paint, stone, machinery, whatever. The importance of what they do is greater than anyone estimates at the time. In fact, in a commercial world there are thousands of lives wasted doing things not worth doing. Human spirit is sacrificed. More and more things are produced at will in the creation and are consumed or “used” without a will in the consumption or the using. These things are dead. They pass, masquerading as important while they are before us, but they pass utterly. There is nothing so important as art in the world, nothing so constructive, so life sustaining. I would like you to go to your work with a consciousness that it is more important than any other thing you might do. It may have no great commercial value, but it has inestimable and lasting life value."
Robert Henri, The Art Spirit
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Creative Incite, yet another publication of Butter Lamb Press, is a (mostly) weekly publication created to help artists and artist-adjacent folks cope with a world that is much too practical. If you'd like to contact Creative Incite, you can drop me a line here. Butter Lamb Press is the publishing arm of the Butter Lamb Reference Library, which exists to proclaim the good news of reference books as a source of trustworthy information to challenge misconception, confront willful ignorance, and provide answers to an astonishing array of questions be they serious, silly, or something in between.
