
Does Having a Day Job Mean Making Better Art? - prismatic
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/t-magazine/art/artist-day-job.html
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jadedhacker
NYT is always pro-working for people with money. Art freed from working works
against the system as a whole because it shows other ways of being and
thinking are possible.

I'm sure there's something to artists living and working among the rest of us
to make the art relevant, but it doesn't need to be on an employer's schedule
or in the quantity they demand.

EDIT: For instance, having a job allows an artist to be a mirror of the
current society, but does it help them look beyond it? Maybe, maybe not.

EDIT 2: Note this article is not by an artist for artists. It's aimed at non-
artists.

~~~
UenoHDTV80
Please help me understand. You're saying the NYT has some agenda to keep
artists from quiting their day jobs? If so that seems implausible.

For many artists there is no other choice. Art won't pay the bills but for a
small few. I for one enjoy the freedom that comes with having a day job. I
don't have to worry if people will like my art (because it doesn't need to
make money) And I often get good ideas for writing and music when completing
some monotonous task in the office.

About your first edit... I think it's absurd to think you need to be jobless
in order to question society. In fact, having a job gives you a front row seat
to everything wrong with us.

~~~
jadedhacker
> Please help me understand. You're saying the NYT has some agenda to keep
> artists from quiting their day jobs? If so that seems implausible.

NYT doesn't specifically have it out for artists, they just are owned by
capitalists and advocate the viewpoint that labor should be subservient to
capital. Therefore they tend to publish viewpoints that are aligned with their
internal ideology. They do publish some dissenting views, but by fraction this
is their predominant viewpoint. If you'd like a sophisticated and detailed
analysis of this, please read or watch Manufacturing Consent, a seminal work
in this area.

> For many artists there is no other choice. Art won't pay the bills but for a
> small few. I for one enjoy the freedom that comes with having a day job. I
> don't have to worry if people will like my art (because it doesn't need to
> make money) And I often get good ideas for writing and music when completing
> some monotonous task in the office.

Note that this conception of freedom is bound up within the capitalist system.
People that do not labor for wages are strangled until they comply. It can be
that the particular conditions of wage labor are suitable for your individual
situation. That is fine, but is not a comprehensive view of how art and
society should interact. Real freedom would be for you to be able to work on
your art as you please without want for shelter, food, or transport. Public
funding of the arts is one way we can help create those conditions for
artists.

It's considered notable that the British system of the dole is what created
the conditions for the Beetles to develop. If you want really good art, you
have to let artists practice their craft consistently.

> About your first edit... I think it's absurd to think you need to be jobless
> in order to question society. In fact, having a job gives you a front row
> seat to everything wrong with us.

That's exactly what I said. Having a front row seat allows you to be a mirror
of society and allows you to develop particular kinds of criticisms. However,
it is not the bounded conception of all possible kinds of art, many if not
most kinds of art have nothing to do with developing a mirror. Instead,
perhaps they imagine something totally different. Even producing a mirror does
not necessarily require participating every day. Many times, just a taste is
enough to develop an idea. Interviewing people can help you develop ideas.
Importantly, the latter is inhibited if you have other things to do.

~~~
UenoHDTV80
I get that NYT has a viewpoint. I know about manufacturing consent. What I'm
saying is, if you wanna catch the media serving capitalist aims, you picked a
lame example. For your argument to make sense, the times would have to
conciously benefit from this story. Does anyone think that the tiny percentage
of financially succesful artists makes a dent in the labor pool for NYTs
ownership? The impact to capitalism from someone quitting their job as a taxi
driver to sell paintings is miniscule. Even on a sub concious level, this is
probably on nobody's mind at the nyt board, never mind the editorial staff. A
better explanation for this story: its the sort of middle brow gee whiz art
stories nyt readers love to click on.

Your argument makes even less sense when you realize that artists who quit
their dayjob are still part of the capitalist system, and continue to get
exploited. History is ripe with examples of musicians getting screwed by a
label or writers getting screwed by their publishers. Even idependent artists
still work within the capitalist system and get taken advantage of. So even if
nyt was part of a capitalist conspiracy, theres no reason for them to care if
the artist has a job or not.

Thanks for quibbling over the semantics of freedom. Yes i know that id be more
free if i could just make art all day and not work. Im not independently
wealthy though. And we dont live in a socislist paradise. When i said freedom,
i meant freedom from making money with art, and i thought that was understood.
You cant deny that creative control with no paying audience you must answer to
is one type of freedom.

Lastly, im not implying that having a job lets your art mirror society. Its
possible to think outside of it. That has nothing to do with whether your
employed or not. What it requires is imagination.

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biztos
As one of the (perhaps many) artists here with day jobs in software, I read
this with interest. I was a bit disappointed but, given it's the NYT,
unsurprised there wasn't more about the primary reason most artists have day
jobs in the first place: the art, more often than not, doesn't pay; and some
of us need to make rent just the same.

I would not say being a software guy has, by itself, had much influence on my
art practice so far, though I may yet end up mixing the two disciplines. But I
will say that having a reliable, full-time day-job over the years has hugely
influenced my artistic _productivity_ and not for the better. Other artists-
with-day-jobs I know would almost certainly echo this.

However, for better or worse I chose this path because I didn't want the kind
of financial insecurity I saw as a likely risk of trying the "professional
artist" path. In retrospect I think I was only half right about that.

On the one hand, a good number of the successful artists I know have other
money and also connections such that their worst-case scenario would have been
falling back to a fancier version of my life. On the other hand, now that I'm
20-odd years into it I see that a lot comes to you from just staying in the
game, and there are ways of balancing the "work" against the "art" that are
more favorable to the latter. Figuring this out going forward is one of my big
challenges at the moment -- it gets more complicated as your career progresses
and you can't just punch a virtual clock anymore.

Purely anecdotal evidence: off the top of my head I can think of seven friends
(plus me) who have real day jobs and are also visual artists. One basically
gave up painting; two of us are stalled and trying to get started again; one
has a job in the art world so is "inside" even during his downtime; and
everyone struggles to find time for their art.

Among those I know without day jobs, I'd say about half are more or less broke
and half are more or less successful (galleries, museums, etc.). But even
among the successful ones there are several who would be broke if not for
their partners. I guess I (obviously) still don't like those odds.

~~~
matthewwiese
Your Hacker News bio doesn't link to any of your art! That very well could be
intentional, but if you don't mind I'd be interested in seeing the paintings
of a fellow HN regular. :)

Also, I'm sure you're aware that Paul Graham wrote a book titled _Hackers &
Painters_? The short blurb in your bio reads as if the coincidence was
intentional, at least.

~~~
biztos
Yes, the coincidence was intentional, thanks for noticing! I haven't read the
book but I loved the famous review[0] of it.

Getting my online portfolio in shape is one of those projects I keep weighing
against actually making some new art. A few old pics can be found here, but I
have many many more to photograph and put online:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20140210041241/http://www.kevinfr...](http://web.archive.org/web/20140210041241/http://www.kevinfrost.com/)

Also: I don't mean to imply that my writing software has no influence on my
artwork -- I've even made a few works of digital art[1], and for a while I was
planning to go to grad school in that direction. But I've been programming
since I was a kid, and I see "writes code" as a separate thing from "works as
a software engineer." I could have made that clearer.

Thanks for your interest!

[0]:
[http://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm](http://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm)

[1]: [http://lv8.biztos.com](http://lv8.biztos.com)

~~~
matthewwiese
I really like the first painting you linked to. Your work is definitely the
kind that I gravitate towards and I'd like to keep up with it when you get
around to putting your updated portfolio online.

On your second point: have you dabbled in computational art? Anything from
animation to machine learning to a homemade CNC painting bot? This
intersection of the two disciplines, at least in my personal work, has always
been what I find most exciting.

Apologies for the incessant questions! I just always get excited by code being
using to create art and have always loved that _prima facie_ paradoxical
dichotomy.

~~~
biztos
Thanks. I paint in a few other styles as well... gotta get that portfolio
together...

Yes, I have done some computational art, going back to the 90's. Some Flash,
some web-based, an abortive attempt or two at art-apps after the iPhone SDK
came out, some low-key conceptual stuff[0]. When I think about maybe merging
the art and software practices now, I think mostly in terms of physical
objects affected by software interacting with humans. But not exactly
robotics, I don't think that's my alley. But... time... Gotta make some old-
fashioned pictures first.

[0]: [http://thislikethat.com](http://thislikethat.com)

------
839083
The article is about the creators of “static” art: writers, composers, and
artists. Having a day job would affect actors, musicians, or dancers, much
like it would affect athletes. The artistic fields that require “dynamic”
performance need the hours spent on muscle memory.

~~~
asdf1234tx
Live performance art can indeed impact time resources. But so can other kinds
of art at intensive levels.

Indeed I have known, as you call them "static" artists, and "dynamic" artists
(poor dividing lines for this conversation), that were so enveloped that they
had no time for a day job, career, marriage, or children.

But I know far more artists that have plenty of time for additional choices,
such as job, career, marriage, children, leisure, etc.

Back to the original point, I don't find myself engaging readily with people
who don't know, or understand, profoundly difficult physical labor, and
profoundly difficult mental labor.

Both are character shaping. So an artist who is lacking one or the other, I
don't find accessible. It doesn't mean that we are all busy all the time,
working and thinking hard, it just means that at some point in life, having
gone through that deeply impacts a person.

Throw in a little philosophy, introspection, and reflection, and those kinds
of artists can produce static or dynamic (to use your words) art that really
pulls one in, and demands engagement.

~~~
839083
I didn’t like “static” and “dynamic” but they were the best words I could come
up with quickly. Mostly I mean that the performative arts involve a physical
skill component that will be hard to develop without the sheer hours.
Introspection and character-building are also necessary but less primary, and
the threshold for technical skill rises as the amount of originality required
decreases. Compare standards for classical music and ballet to jazz and modern
dance. The expectations for a top violinist or ballerina are essentially those
of a figure skater or gymnast.

None of this is to say painting and sculpting don’t require skill, but I’m not
sure Picasso or Van Gogh would’ve been able to show their genius if they had
to be Bob Ross and do it live every time.

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costcopizza
As an aspiring songwriter with a 9-5 the main benefit is simply providing a
time constraint that forces you to work.

~~~
1337biz
I can totally understand this. This would be the main problem for me about
freelancing. Too much freedom turns me into a hobo hermit.

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btrettel
Unfortunately intellectual property (IP) contracts make the lifestyle
described in the article difficult for engineers and programmers. Work on
something in your spare time that is plausibly related to work your company
does? Too bad, your company owns it, usually. (I plan to negotiate on this
point when getting a job offer in the future.)

I wouldn't be surprised if such policies were shown to be negatively
correlated with innovation (however defined), because they remove much
incentive to generate good ideas.

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ruminasean
I had the best of both worlds, working as a photographer and in a lighting gig
in TV with enough downtime to do all the work on what I shot when I wasn't
working. Then, the photography thing took off, the lighting gig got crazy busy
and my other other job got crazy too. Now I'm so tired I can't even think
about working on photos and I never get time off. Be careful what you wish
for....

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beebmam
I made the best "art" of my life when I was unemployed living at home taking
care of my elderly father.

However, I also believe that software engineering is an art, not just the
programming part, but the communicating/organizing/planning part as well. It's
hard to compare the two

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anotheryou
work, eat, sleep, repeat—an uninspiring 9to6 job does not help getting art
done

~~~
kleer001
unless your job IS making art, then you're golden

~~~
anotheryou
if it's the art you want to make, yes :)

~~~
kleer001
Oh man, hopefully people aren't being hired to create art they're not trained
in doing.

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goldenkey
We all know struggle is a prelude to strong beliefs. And that much of quality
art relates to the struggles of the common man. So why should this be of any
surprise?

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stephenSinniah
For me routine kills creativity, I suppose it could work if you're making
"consumer art".

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bobowzki
Paywall. Can someone provide a summary?

~~~
combatentropy
Many artists had day jobs. For example, the composer Philip Glass was a
plumber, the poet William Carlos Williams was a doctor. The article explores
whether a day job gets in the way of your art or feeds it in some way.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
And a very silly article it is too, because the confirmation bias is absolute.

We never hear of talented artists whose careers were sunk by job slavery,
because their stories will never get media attention.

~~~
UenoHDTV80
But the article spotlightd successful artists who say dayjobs fueled their
work. I don't think the point is to answer the question statistically. For
some talented people, a dayjob is preferred. And that's all the article is
about

