Job or Hobby?

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Can it be that how the artist speaks of his or her art sets the tone of how the artist is perceived by the general public as either the hobbyist or professional?

I seem to have more problems with convincing family members that this is what I do for a living than strangers. Since I stopped answering phone calls during business hours and outright told family members that although my studio is in my home - I am working, they are slowly catching on.

Alex ,it would be interesting to see the results of such an experiment .

[Claudemir Bonfim]

Before becoming famous, the lead vocalist Alex Band was asked when he was going to get a job. He answered he already had a job; he just didn't get well paid. Now that "The Calling" is famous I wonder if anyone would dare to ask him if he is going to get a real job now.

Van Gogh was very bad at selling his paintings and he only painted in the last years of his life, but if one is asked about his occupation, this person will probably refer to him as an Artist, just because he became famous after his death.

The problem is with people's perception of reality and lack of respect and consideration. Modern artists have the same problem toward portraitists as well.

I think that "common sense" hates differences. It seems that if you don't hat your job, that's not a job.

What about screen writers, poets, actors, philosophers, etc?

I don't care if people don't consider it a job as long as they respect me and what I do to make a living, some clients didn't finish their payments because they considered it my hobby. Nowadays I always make it clear that I want to get paid for my hobby.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

I sometimes think it is also the way a person dresses etc. that influences people's perceptions of how good or serious an artist you might be. I really do not look the part of an artist at all. I never wear arty clothes, die my hair strange colours, pierce and tatoo my body etc. My scruffiness is more suggestive of a hiker in between hikes rather than anything bohemian, so when I say I am an artist people I am sure a lot of people have the impression that it is wishful thinking.

[Mary Cupp]

But if making a profit is what defines a serious artist and not just a hobbyist, then what was Van Gogh? I think it depends on your own attitude towards your work. If it is truly your passion andf you feel that this is what you were put on earth to do, then you are not a hobbist, regardless of how much, or little, money you make.

[SB Wang]

All of a sudden a friend asked me the question: "When do you think a person's life is the best?" When a friend asked me this question, I was reading the poem of the U.S. poet laureate Robert Frost . On borrowing homeopathy of a Robert Frost poem to a friend I answered:

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."

[Richard Bingham]

Originally Posted by Mary Cupp

But if making a profit is what defines a serious artist and not just a hobbyist, then what was Van Gogh? I think it depends on your own attitude towards your work. If it is truly your passion andf you feel that this is what you were put on earth to do, then you are not a hobbist, regardless of how much, or little, money you make.

Do your perceptions of Vince's "situation" include how brother Theo was connected in the art markets of the time as an art dealer and agent? The proposition that Vin would paint "for the market" while Theo supplied his necessities of life until he could earn his own way was in place almost immediately as he morphed from missionary to "artist". That Vincent's work was never marketable in his own (very short) lifetime as a painter (ten years!) hardly means that his motives didn't include becoming profitable.

[Mary Cupp]

I think most serious artists do have an intent to gain commercial success and work towards it happening. But if the success doesn't materialize, the fact doesn't turn them into a hobbyist. Cezanne sought commercial success long before he obtained it. Had he not been taken in by Paris dealers and not been able to sell his work, it would not have made him a less serious artist.

My basic point is that it is passion and dedication, not money, that make the difference between a professional artist and a hobbyist. The vagaries of the art market, public taste and the economy place the artist in an odd position vis a vis making money. With depression looming in this country, I don't think any artist should define their professionalism by profitability.

[SB Wang]

"The Road Not TAken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that mornign equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leas on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I

[Richard Bingham]

Originally Posted by Mary Cupp

. . . if the success doesn't materialize, the fact doesn't turn them into a hobbyist . . .

I quite agree. One of my early instructors defined the total committment you are equating with the term "professional artist" thusly: "If you would continue to make your art, even if it were outlawed . . . you have the committment to be an artist."

Cezanne (and Manet) are perhaps not the best examples to apply that particular yardstick of non-selling "professional". Faced with the periodic non-salability of their work, both were independently well-off, and didn't have to be economically successful artists to continue eating regularly. Were they "hobbyists" ?? Perhaps others of their social class considered them such, since the acceptable "real" work of others in their position was to enter the army, politics, or the church.

Much depends how one defines the terms. In this country, if your work doesn't sell, ergo you do not derive your livlihood from making art, the IRS decides for you. In this instance, you will summarily be identified as a hobbyist!

I certainly don't think such categorizing based on the arbitrariness of the tax code has anything to do with the sort of deep, personal committment you speak of.