I’m an artist in my 30s without any major success. Before the pandemic I had quite a lot of opportunities. Unfortunately Covid and then political and personal matters beyond my control shattered my work and social circles. I lost contacts and had no time for networking.
My art evolved with me and has become less conceptual, more narrative and accessible. The most fulfilling moment in the last few months was when I surprised a local cashier by giving her an illustration. Nevertheless, I’ve started to doubt that I can move people with my art.
I don’t know how to reach people without spending hours upon hours on social media (which is draining), and the advance of generative AI worries me. There’s little to no money from art and, while I put all my soul and heart in it, my energy (and health) are not infinite. I see other, bigger, known artists also struggling, while their work was used to train AI models without their consent. I keep asking myself: “What’s the point?” I don’t feel art and artists, cartoonists, illustrators are respected in our culture any more. Should I just give up?
Eleanor says: Do you remember when you started making art, maybe in childhood? When you first picked up a pencil, something made you want to keep doing it. It probably wasn’t the thought “I want to do this for the money” or “I want others to recognise my skill at this”. Something in the activity itself called you back.
If I’m hearing you correctly, you now don’t know whether you want to keep making art given the lack of money, cultural esteem or industry success so far. Of course that makes sense; anybody would find that demoralising. But the strange thing is that money or success or cultural esteem probably weren’t the point of making art in the first place. You just wanted to do it; it seemed inexhaustible.
Because we have to make money somehow, measure things somehow, to be an “artist” in adult vocabulary means to be someone who makes art for money, with success. But I think it’s well worth keeping the question of how much to make art as your job, or whether to try to be “on the art scene”, separate from the question of whether to keep making art at all.
The first question is: “Should I keep trying to make art a major part of how I earn money?” That’s a financial decision. How much you should pay in time and opportunity cost depends entirely on how the rest of your financial stability looks. Money is one part of life where I think we can and should make decisions with the cold hard maths of expected utilities. Your long-term housing or retirement are not things to take high-risk gambles with, if you can help it.
A different question is: “Should I keep making art, even though I’m not sure I’ll ever be recognised as an artist?” We so want to be recognised for our talents. We want the things we make with skill and care to be understood as valuable. I completely hear your concerns about how that recognition may elude artists in an era of AI. And yet, in same breath, you have a tale of totally straightforward and beautiful recognition from the woman for whom you made your illustration. It shines out to you as something that felt fulfilling. Reaching people with your art is not just a matter of digital footprint or industry metrics.
Of course, the need to market oneself imposes metrics on us – it can make us think in terms of “impressions”, or audience size, or getting grants. (And the more you need to make money through your art, the more you’re liable to measure it by those standards as well). But when you ask whether you’re getting any recognition for your work, try also to measure things like humans reached, days made, meaning felt, moments like the one you found so fulfilling.
The third, final, question is: “Should I keep making art?” Even though it might not make money? Even though the algorithm might not value it? Even though all around me the slop marches on, I feel a growing carelessness in the culture, an indifference to craft – should I keep making art? To that, you might well answer: why would I stop?
This letter has been edited.
