Are you an artist and also working on a job? Perhaps you are thinking of quitting your job and becoming a full time artist. I left my main 9-5 job to become an artist. Allow me to share my viewpoint after years of leaving my job.
Grass is always greener on the other side
As much as I loved the idea of becoming a full time artist. I have to admit that after few months of training myself as an artist, I started missing my stable salary. Having a stable salary is a blessing that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Having said that, it was my passion for becoming a professional artist (and my savings and family support) that still kept me going.
Consider part time jobs if you want to quit job to become an artist
Unless you have some huge savings or financial support and you can actually afford no work and just focus on art, you really need to think of part time jobs. Even though I left my full time job to pursue art, I was into some kind of part time earnings like freelance writing and teaching. I was teaching coding as I like coding and have familiarity with it due to my engineering background. However, you can also teach art related topics.
You can teach any other subject that you are passionate about or teach art itself. I have listened to so many successful artist interviews and most of them teach art as an additional income source. In fact, most of the artists I know personally either teach art or are involved in some other work to support themselves.
Parkinson’s law is for real
If you are unfamiliar with Parkinson’s law, let me brief it up for you. It states that the work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion. For instance if you have to finish a task strictly in one hour, you will finish it in one hour. However, you might take your own time to finish it in five hours if you have five hours to finish it. This law might not strictly apply to oil paintings as you have to really wait for it to dry in most cases but you get the gist.
What I am trying to emphasise here is that if your full time job is satisfying to some extent and is efficient in paying your bills, you might think of continuing with it. Even if you can squeeze one or two hours a day for your art, perhaps that is sufficient initially. Household chores and other distractions might still give you two to three hours a day to paint if you aren’t working.
Don’t burden your art initially
As mentioned in the brilliant book by Elizabeth Gilbert in “Big Magic”, we should not burden our art to pay our bills specially in early stages of our artistic career. Success in creative fields is subjective to a lot of factors. If you can support yourself and your art initially through additional income source, you will save yourself from lots of stress and art will flow from you more freely.
I highly encourage you to read “Big Magic” . This book is a must read for everyone. The portion where having a side job is discussed is almost an eye-opener.
Consider modern day jobs and possibilities
If you have enough discipline, you can consider making a YouTube channel, art blog, sell prints, create courses on art, write e-books etc. Such ideas will help you make money through your art other than original art sales. However, money will not come instantly. You will need lots of patience, a solid business plan, hard work and consistency like in any other business. Consider this option only if you are high on self discipline and savings both.
Exceptions are always there
With the advent of social media and so many options available to artists to market themselves, art world scenarios are changing. There are so many full time artists who are fully supporting themselves financially. They are doing brilliant marketing for themselves and their art is superb too. If you want to follow this path, try finding what’s working for them, what’s their strategy. Join communities or courses if possible and if they feel right. There is lots of help out there. However, it is obvious you need to have some savings or financial support even in this path.
Conclusion on whether you should quit job to become an artist
When I look back at my own decision of quitting my main nine to five job, I am not sure if I was right. However, I can say that I am proud of the fact that I was courageous and authentic towards myself. I listened to my heart. I am also proud of supporting myself financially through part time jobs whenever possible. Along the way, I have made some actual earnings through my art sales and that made my life somewhat more beautiful. Being a little practical along with being a dreamer is not a bad combination after all. I hope that my creative life story along with my views shaped along the way inspire you to take the right decision for yourself!
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