Artist vs. Businessman
I consider myself to be a moderately successful artist.
I am a painter, and made enough money doing my art to retire at fifty-three to a Caribbean island —a millionaire. But life continued to happen, and now (at age sixty-eight) I’m back in a studio and doing the best work I’ve ever done, trying to repeat my success in only five- or ten years rather than in thirty. And I do consider myself to be a businessman. I always have.
I do pay attention to what art is currently in fashion, but this knowledge represents no more than a pinch of salt in the banquet I’m trying to prepare. One basic understanding helped me walk the line between pandering to the apparent tastes of collectors and just ripping my soul from my body and putting it on canvas: you don’t have to do good art to make a fortune as an artist, but making a fortune as an artist doesn’t mean that you have to do bad art, either.
I continue to walk that line, and in the process am growing as an artist. I’ve introduced new themes and subjects and techniques into my work, and everything builds on everything else. I’ve created new models for marketing my art. I’m paying the bills and making a profit and painting most every day. And that, for me at least, is again creating success.
And I’ve only just begun.
