Job or Hobby?

[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.

[Alexandra Tyng]

Originally Posted by Richard Bingham

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.

I hope no one thinks I actually agree with the IRS! I just put the fact up there as a discussion point. In truth I agree with Richard's (and others') sentiments as expressed above.

I'm currently trying to think of zingers I could toss out at my friends who make "hobbyist" sorts of comments. They're fun to think of, but I don't think they would like me too much if I said them. Maybe getting people into thought-provoking discussions is better:

"When will you get a REAL job?"
"What do you mean by a 'real' job?"
"You know, like working at Border's. . . or 7-11 even."
"Why are these real?"
"Because you get a regular paycheck."
"Are you saying that people who work on commission, like sales reps, don't have real jobs.?"
"Well, no. . ."
"I work on commission."
"Yes, but that's different!"
Why? Because I like my job?"
etc.

As you can see, the virtually futile task of trying to convince people that art is not a hobby intrigues me.

SB, the Robert Frost poem reminds me of a passage in the book The Gift of Asher Lev by Chaim Potok. It's a sequel to My Name is Asher Lev. Both are about an artist who is the son of Hasidic Jews. The Rebbe asks Asher's young son a riddle:

"Which is better, to take the short road that is long, or to take the long road that is short?" (paraphrasing)

[Richard Bingham]

Perhaps the crux of the question is how distinctions of "worthiness" relate to art that's actively selling, compared to the concept of art as a hobby.

Like it or not, the pragmatic baseline of economic existence is that nothing that doesn't trade for actual currency has "real" value. Ergo, the job at 7-11 is "real", but making paintings on speculation and a spotty, unreliable pecuniary return is . . . well, not nearly as "real".

I don't want to descend into a pessimistic paranoia, but I truly worry how the "useful" active market for highly-skilled artwork has waned during the past 80+ years, and with it, the necessary "audience appreciation" that results in market demand. Only 25 years ago, all aspects of visual representation that could not be photographed depended upon the minds and eye/hand skills of artists from sign writers to cartoonists, animators, matte painters and ad illustrators to "fine" artists.

Electronics and the computer have cleared a path for the artistically inept, and making the processes formerly used to produce this work as obsolete as the horse and buggy, with a resulting loss of quality and tastefulness. Ever since, an explosion of computer-generated images bombards us with an unfathomable, continual stream of colors, forms, and images from the time we awaken 'til we close our eyes . . . and most of it is bad and getting worse.

"A Portrait of the Artist as a Hobbyist" is furthered by perceptions that to be an "artist" one must be a madman or an eccentric bohemian starving in a garrett, whose worth will only be recognized long after he or she is very dead. Compounding this are notions that the making of art results not from study, training, intense practice and hard work, but from infused knowledge ("talent"), and that serious bodies of work result spontaneously out of serendipity, and erratic spur-of- the -moment "inspirations".

Popular perception equates pursuing an art career with an indolent self-improvement at best ("relaxation"), and with misanthropic self-indulgence at the worst. Owing to misunderstanding of how a few elementary art-making processes are utilized in occupational therapy for the mentally disturbed, it's often concluded that the results of "art therapy" are equivalent to the output of dedicated professional artists.

When a pickled shark commands a price in six figures and the starving of a poor, hapless dog to death is proclaimed to be "art", who can blame the man in the street if he is confused?

[Jennifer Bogartz]

Originally Posted by Richard Bingham

"A Portrait of the Artist as a Hobbyist" is furthered by perceptions that to be an "artist" one must be a madman or an eccentric bohemian starving in a garrett, whose worth will only be recognized long after he or she is very dead. Compounding this are notions that the making of art results not from study, training, intense practice and hard work, but from infused knowledge ("talent"), and that serious bodies of work result spontaneously out of serendipity, and erratic spur-of- the -moment "inspirations".

Popular perception equates pursuing an art career with an indolent self-improvement at best ("relaxation"), and with misanthropic self-indulgence at the worst. Owing to misunderstanding of how a few elementary art-making processes are utilized in occupational therapy for the mentally disturbed, it's often concluded that the results of "art therapy" are equivalent to the output of dedicated professional artists.

When a pickled shark commands a price in six figures and the starving of a poor, hapless dog to death is proclaimed to be "art", who can blame the man in the street if he is confused?

When people don't understand the hard work that goes into learning the skills necessary to make a successful piece of work they assume that you are gifted. They think that it's magic, that you are commanded by a higher power to produce an image and your hand makes it so. Most people will never know how much hard work goes into making a bad painting and how many bad paintings are made in the process of learning to make successful paintings.