What defines an artist?
Does it matter how you pay your bills? If you are still creating, you are still an artist. There are galleries out there who won’t carry your work if you are still working for a check to pay your bills. Given the current state of affairs, I’m wondering if that is really being realistic. It isn’t like one gallery can carry you and keep you in business for the rest of your life. There was a time in the past where you could make a living in one gallery in specific places, if you were lucky to be there. If you had a publicist who knew their job, they could get you all over the nation and possibly the world. Companies like Leanin’ Tree, Wild Wings, Hallmark, used to take art and turn them into everything beyond greeting cards and some of them still do (here is a link to 25 of them 25 Greeting Card Companies Looking for Writers - ivetriedthat) but most just do card and make sure you check the fine print about what they take and more importantly; what they do with them. Many companies will purchase the image and then own them. I have a friend who has had a very lucrative career with Wild Wings for several years.
The art market is up and down and while we are trying to survive the downs, we need to figure out how to pivot in ways that keep us going in the lean times. Sometimes we can go new places to sell our art, sometimes we can try new online market and sometimes, we need to just go out and get a paying job for a while. It sucks, I get it; it doesn’t mean we are a failure. If we quit creating, we have failed. I have known several artists who have had jobs and sold their art at the same time. I know an amazing artist who was a nail technician for years while building her art career. We all have to keep finding our way and when we let someone else tell us what we can and cannot do, we are limiting our chances of success by limiting our options.
What every you decide to do remember this one thing, there is no one set way to be an artist. While you are slogging and fighting your way uphill, consider all of those who have fought this battle before you. Failure is always possible and as I have said before, get good at it. The more often you push past it, the less it will ever hold you back. While you are trying to endure the disappointments don’t forget why you do art, not to sell, not for recognition, but because of the process of creation. If you sit around thinking about what color looks like on a surface, stare at a scene and think about how to render it in different values and other tones; you aren’t ready to give up creating art. That is why you are creating art.