Work and artwork balance.

It is very challenging for most artists to maintain a productive studio practice when they also have to keep a full time day job, or run a business that is not related to the art they make.

 I’ve had many conversations with very talented painters, that would love to be able to still have some time or energy left when they get home after work, spend time with their loved ones, tend to daily chores, etc. to then sit in front of an easel and get anything going on a canvas. It is a very challenging situation to be in, and can be very frustrating, specializing when you spend the day getting hit by the creative muse at work, and you start developing these ideas and concepts in your head about the things you would create “as soon as you can take some time off” or when “things slow down a bit”, but before we know it, years have passed by and we are still going around the same loop, waiting for time to slow down, or for days to last longer than they do when you are stuck in a daily work routine, and art making keeps fading further into the future, waiting for a day when we have less things to take care of.

I guess, what Im’s trying to get at is… is it possible to have a day job, family life, social life, etc. and still have enough time and brain juice left to go into a studio, or art segment of your home, and just get lost in the creative process?… To put hour after hour of work that might or might not sell, or that you might not even have the time to do the additional required work to even put it out there so people can at least see what you are creating and MAYBE generate some interest.

Side note: Im not saying that making money and selling pieces should be the purpose of making art, each artist has the right and freedom to paint for whatever reason they want. But if part of your interest of creating is sharing your work with others, then the buy and sell conversation is going to come up at some point.

In my case, taking the, maybe not so financially secure path of doing freelance mural painting work, puts me in the position of being able to carve time out time to work on my paintings. Obviously it comes at a cost, but it is a cost that I’ve gotten accustomed to, risk of failure. The risk of failure feels greater because Im betting on myself and my work, in a market where most, if not all odds are stacked against me as an artist, but I am also accustomed to that pressure, it actually drives me to keep working, keep experimenting, trying to do my best not to chase the so called “art market “ or follow trends, or try look for and answer to the ridiculous question of “what do people want?”.

I have no idea of what people want, and I won’t even try to guess, because I barely know what I want, and that fact alone took me a very long time to figure out. So I just follow the muse wherever it takes me, within reason, because as kids say these days, the muse be trippin sometimes.

So back to the question, under these circumstances, can artists with the need to work a job find that balance? Realistically, I think not…. Not that they can’t do both, they definitely can, but it won’t be something cool and organic where everything is just going to fall in place smoothly. It will probably be a mess at the beginning, and scary for most, but it is possible. Very little balance actually…. but it can be done. If the hunger to create art is strong enough, the chaos will make sense, and eventually, things will start to self adjust. I don’t have the answers to everything, but I do know that the times that I’m able to sit down and paint what I want.. all the sacrifices, uncertain precious where there is no work, solitude, minimal social life, etc.. all of it starts to make sense… what seem to be negatives, start to look like positives. But that is my scenario, my situation, each artist needs to find out what type of chaos they are willing to deal with for the sake of making the art they want to make.

Im not sure who this message is exactly for. I know for a fact that artists reading it know exactly what I'm talking about, but Im also curious to know if other people can relate in their own way.