Making a living from your art is not for everyone.
Something happens internally when you begin thinking of your art as a source of income rather than an enjoyable activity, and it isn’t always a good thing.
Just because you love making art doesn’t mean you should put your financial future on the line for it. It takes more than passion to become a full-time artist.
When you put your work out there and ask for money for it, you feel exposed. Vulnerable. Not everyone can handle that, and not everyone should have to.
I’m not here to talk anyone into the artist’s life. But if you’re committed to making this work, here’s what that actually requires.
Contents
Listen
Commit to your studio practice
Your studio practice is your number one priority. Always. If you’re not making art, you have nothing to share or sell that would help you make a living.
Then you’re faced with the fact that the old gatekeepers — galleries, juried shows, the art establishment — have lost much of their power. The floodgates are wide open.
Anyone can call themselves an artist. That’s largely a good thing, but it has a shadow side: there are more artists than ever trying to sell their work, and too many of them are doing it before the work is ready.
Don’t market prematurely. Do the hard work in the studio first.
Your first goal is a cohesive body of work, which looks different for every artist.
But for the emerging artist, it means quantity and quality. You need enough for a solid exhibition. You need enough that someone can look at your work and say, “That’s that artist’s work, not their teacher’s.”
Confidence is the result of hundreds of hours in the studio, and, boy, are you going to need that confidence. Confidence in yourself, confidence in the work, confidence that you’re headed in the right direction. It comes from showing up consistently.
Aim for profitability
Once you have a body of work you’re proud of, you have to face the financial reality head-on.
When you are trying to make a living from the work, you must think like an entrepreneur, not just an artist. You need to know where the money is going to come from.
What will you sell? What are your price points?
Can you produce and sell enough to actually reach your income goal?
A lot of artists have a financial target in mind, but their price points and output capacity can never add up to that number. You have to do the math. The numbers might surprise you, but they don’t lie.
It’s a fact that many artists who want to earn a living from their work need more than one income source, and there’s no shame in that. We need money to live!
Teaching, consulting, and products are common additions to original art sales. But you must be aware that each income source requires its own positioning.
The way you market yourself as a teacher is different from how you market yourself as a fine artist.
And if you’re going to sell lower-priced products alongside $1,500 or $3,000 originals, return to that math. Know this: it takes just as much marketing effort to sell a $150 reproduction as it does to sell a $1,500 original. Where are you going to spend your energy?
You are
not the same person you were before this decision
Let go of old stories
Facing those numbers can bring up a lot. What often surfaces are the old stories. The ones about who you’ve been and how you’ve defined yourself.
You are not the same person you were before you made this decision.
When you decide to make a living from your art, you’ve made a decision to change your professional life. Your identity shifts with it.
Old stories might sound like this: I was a teacher. I was an engineer. I was a stay-at-home mom. There is no room for “was” here. Only who you are now. You are an artist.
And baked into that, you are, as I said above, also an entrepreneur.
One of the most important traits of artists and entrepreneurs — if not the most important — is curiosity. You already have it in spades when it comes to your work.
How could this composition improve? How could I get these two materials to work together? How could I convey what I feel about this subject?
That same curiosity belongs on the business side of your practice. How can I make this work? What do I need to learn? What haven’t I tried?
You are not the same person you were before you made this decision. Free yourself from the old stories.
Engage with your artist community
A fast way to rewrite those old stories is to surround yourself with artists who are already living the artist’s life.
Finding your people is among the most impactful steps you can take, and it’s one of the first things I recommend when an artist is building a business. History backs this up: artists in vibrant communities advance further and take their careers farther than those who try to go it alone.
In the right community, you find inspiration. You hear about opportunities that would never land in your inbox on their own. You learn skills. You gain confidence as a businessperson.
And there’s something else that comes with it: a kind of accountability, or maybe a healthy aspiration to be doing what the people around you are doing.
You’re looking for like-minded artists. Other artists don’t need to share your goals, but they do need to share a growth mindset — a genuine orientation toward improvement and forward motion.
It’s easy to get stuck in the wrong group. Beware of a single person with a poisonous attitude who can cast a pall over an entire group. Hanging out with the wrong people wastes time and almost always ends in frustration.
Be discerning. Find a group that pulls you forward.
Your people
will sustain you
Get your art in front of people
Your community will open doors you didn’t know existed. Some of those doors lead to physical places where your work can be seen in real life.
Exhibiting in person is critical for professional growth. No amount of pixels replaces someone’s experience of seeing art with their own eyes. And nothing replaces what you experience when you’re in the room with them, seeing their faces, having those conversations, discovering the effect your work has on people.
You might start by exhibiting in a borrowed space or a local café, but your career is a journey with phases. Over time, you seek increasingly prestigious venues. That progression is the point.
Gallery representation is something many artists want, and that’s completely understandable. But educate yourself before pursuing that path. Make sure galleries are right for you and that you’re ready for a gallery. They are not going to accept your work simply because you make it.
And commercial galleries are not your only option. As I said, the grip of the gatekeepers continues to loosen.
A very small percentage of artists will be represented by their dream art gallery. Don’t wait. Take control and get the work out now so you can have those conversations, so you can see how people respond, so you can progress.
Embrace structure
Pursuing venues — applying for shows, sending proposals, following up, meeting deadlines — requires that you show up reliably for your art.
That means structure.
I’ll be direct: I will not work with an artist who avoids structure. Not because I don’t understand the appeal of freedom. I do. You didn’t decide to make a living from your art because you love spreadsheets and calendars.
The freedom of creative life is real and worth protecting. But trying to run a profitable business with that same level of freedom is a different matter entirely.
Guidelines, frameworks, and boundaries are the containers that make freedom possible. They are what allow you to be free in the studio, because outside of it, people are depending on you.
Collectors expect their commissions when you said they’d be ready. Curators need your artist statement, your delivery, your follow-through. Art consultants are passing your deadlines on to their clients. Journalists are on deadline too. That’s a lot of people depending on you to do what you said you’d do.
Impose limits on yourself and adhere to them. If you don’t respect your own boundaries, nobody else will.
Here’s the part that surprises artists when they get to a certain point: the more successful you are, the more demands there will be on your time. Success does not come with more free hours. It comes with more complications. Put these foundational structures in place now, before you need them.
You can’t manage time. You can only manage yourself. Protecting your time and energy is non-negotiable.
Learn to say no without guilt. The first few refusals are genuinely hard. No, I can’t have lunch, I’m on deadline; no, I can’t watch your kids; no I can’t head up that committee.
You’ll learn quickly that saying yes to everything means saying no to yourself and to what matters most.
Frameworks & boundaries
make freedom possible
Move forward with intention
Structure keeps you from dropping the ball on other people and on yourself. It starts with intention.
It is remarkably easy to spend an entire day on email, social media, and random clicking. Being reactive rather than deliberate, responding to what other people have put in front of you rather than leading with what you want to accomplish. And before you know it, the day is gone.
Being busy is not productive. I’ll go further: being busy is boring. Everyone is busy. Nobody wants to hear how busy you are. What matters is that you are productive. That you are doing the right work, not just more work.
Work on your business, not just in it.
This means getting your ideas out of your head and into a plan before they disappear. Plans for your day, your week, your month, your year — all anchored to the vision you have for yourself and your art.
This kind of intentional planning is not about rigidity. It’s about being the one who decides how your time is spent, rather than letting other people’s priorities fill the space.
In my Essentials community, I ask members to commit to their priorities for the coming week and then celebrate what they accomplished. That rhythm, intention followed by reflection, is what moves an art business forward.
Make friends with marketing
When you are clear on your priorities and protecting your time, you can show up for marketing consistently. And consistent marketing is non-negotiable when you are trying to earn a living from your art.
Here is my advice: make friends with marketing.
Marketing is how your art reaches the people it was meant for. I think of it as sharing rather than self-promotion. Self-promotion is part of marketing, but it’s not the frame I want you to carry.
Marketing is everything you do to gain recognition for your art and to sell it. It is not a campaign with a beginning and an end. It is ongoing.
Earlier I said you need to let go of old stories. Now I’m going to tell you to watch out for new ones that might emerge when you start marketing. I hear these constantly: I am not a salesperson. I am not outgoing. I am terrible at marketing.
When you say any of these, you are defining yourself in the negative — and they become self-fulfilling prophecies. You cannot say “I’m terrible at marketing” without being terrible at marketing.
What you can say instead: I am getting better at this. I am learning. That is the growth mindset at work.
Aim for consistency. An artist who has neglected their list for months and then suddenly needs to announce a new body of work will find that list has gone cold. The people have moved on or forgotten. You cannot nurture relationships only when you feel like it.
Consider a weekly marketing routine: writing, posting, photographing, making videos, sending emails, following up. All of this on top of your consistent studio practice.
And if you want a truly fulfilled art business and career, you have to leave the studio. Marketing is not just sending a newsletter or posting to Instagram. It means showing up for your galleries and for other artists in your community. It means being seen as someone who contributes to the culture, not just someone who sells work.
Marketing is
your opportunity to share your art
Commitment
Everything I’ve covered — the work, the money, the old stories, the community, the venues, the structure, the intention, the marketing — it’s a lot. But it all comes back to one thing.
Commitment.
Commitment to your work will see you through everything else. Commitment to yourself and the vision you have for your life is your compass. When the commitment is there, you can figure out the rest.
Artists move through the world through their art. It’s how they communicate, how they find meaning in this one precious life. Keeping your art to yourself does it a disservice — and leaves you unfulfilled.
You don’t have to make a living from your art. Many people shouldn’t. But if you take that leap, do it with your whole heart and your best effort.
Ask for help when you need it. [Private consulting] is one way we can work together if you’re ready to commit and want support figuring out the rest.
You can do this when you are devoted to your work. And you don’t have to do it alone.
Resources
- Mason Currey, Making Art and Making a Living
- Why I never advise you to follow your passion
- Finding your artistic style
- Exploring alternative venues for showing your art — episode 264
- Are you gallery ready?
- Juggling multiple income streams as an artist
- How to price your art (with download)
- Building a self-promotion routine
- On saying no without guilt
- Private consulting with Alyson
3 thoughts on “Making a living from your art (266)”
As always, you’ve hit all the right points on this! I’m working at finding the right work/life balance and while I don’t need to support myself or family with my art I do need to pay the bills for my studio and related expenses. For me, I think it’s about having the right mindset to create the work that sells while also setting critical time aside for the experimental and exploratory work that MAY evolve into new creations. Thank you for being here for artists, I’m working through the Optimize your Online Marketing modules right now…they are awesome!
I think this is a very good article that would be useful for most people, A huge belief in yourself and your ability is paramount when becoming a full time artist. It is important not to worry about criticism from other artists who are often unsupportive and jealous when you have successes. Like you say, develop a thick skin, have a plan and stick to,it. it is not other artists who Have bought my art but people who can’t make art themselves or who like quirky work and who have money. there will always be detractors trying to insinuate that you aren’t good enough but it should become water off a ducks back to you. hang around with those people who support you and get rid of the the frenemies and naysayers. soar with people who enjoy your joy. I also buy other artists works that I like for my collection when I gain a big commission or teaching jobs. it’s a way of honouring the industry, adding to your collection and remembering special moments in time. always make sure that you treat people with respect, try not to gossip about them and remember three things a day to be grateful for.
You are spot on with saying that as your art get more popular, the more time you will spend in marketing. I tend to create most of my art in January, February and March. The rest of the year is just marketing nuts with a couple of small windows of time for a few creative projects! Since I took your classes my art has taken two paths. One is the traditional gallery and reproduction sales. The second one came as a surprise to me, as an email offer. In fact I thought it was spam and trashed it the first two emails! The company’s three email got my attention, and now I have my own brand of fashion clothing made from my art. I am currently preparing for a 20 model fashion show in Chicago on September 17th! I am also working on a new website to better represent and house both sides of my business. So that is why none is listed below. But I will give you the links to the two different sub-sites. they are: https://barbara-zipperer.pixels.com and https://www.legaleriste.com/en/barbara.zipperer
Thank you for making this program!
Comments are closed.