This is the third in a series of articles about life as an artist written for an adolescent audience. Most of these articles will apply to the topics of visual and audio art.
Student, you may see this title, “Sitting on the Fence Post” as being a bit ridiculous, but don’t laugh just yet. Here are a few examples of how a situation may change for or time may get away from an artist or an artist wannabe. Which one are you?
Let’s assume you consider yourself an artist at least during your high school years. You have already spent quite an impressive amount of time perfecting your skills and talent. You are so organized that you even keep a time log. You can tell anyone exactly how much time you have spent on your artwork in the last year. Good for you! Now what?
Toward the end of your high school years, you decided that a social life and parties are more important than art. Good luck. Your competition (a future topic) may now have an advantage over you. You made a decision to start a family and therefore cannot afford to go to college, because you must now work to support your child. (Hopefully, you become employed sooner than later.) Not that a college degree is absolutely necessary for a career in art. However, if you are a young parent, don’t plan on having much if any free time for your artwork anytime soon. Your subconscious mind (or an older adult in your life) is (or should be) telling you that your chosen path is making it necessary for you to leave this website and start searching for articles about child development and parenting.
Ok. You in the front row. You’re not into parties. Are you attempting to pay your own way through college? In this case, you must work as many hours as possible to pay an unreasonable tuition rate that no one can justify. Continue to work hard on your school work and at your job (while somehow finding enough time for sleep), and you may be able to spend a little time on your artwork during holiday breaks, summer breaks and again when you have your degree.
Maybe you are receiving scholarship money because you play a sport or have another important role at college. You are fortunate. Even so, with your studies (mostly non-art related), your extracurricular responsibilities and a boyfriend or girlfriend, you may not have much if any time for your artwork. Are you hearing wedding bells? No? Don’t give up on your art just yet.
Other fortunate ones have some time on their hands, because their parents are able to help them with tuition. If this is you, what are your priorities? When there is no college near your parents, you may want to work part-time to pay for your dorm room, books and fees, so that you can start fresh without any debt when you graduate from college. In this situation, in order to keep art in the picture you must remain organized and determined–setting priorities and goals for yourself: schoolwork first, job second and artwork third.
Not to throw water on your fire. Even though you still enjoy the thought of becoming a lifelong artist, this is the most likely time a person begins wondering whether or not art is actually in the cards. Priorities and opportunities can change and/or disappear during the young adult years. You may be destined for marriage whether you had previously realized this or not. Someone you were not looking for or hoping for comes along and boom. This person becomes an instant priority—hopefully a worthy one. You are now realizing that even the best organizer all of a sudden may have no time to complete the most recent piece in progress.
Can you keep art on the back burner? Certainly. There may be some time now and then when you can continue to read topics related to art. Go online, check out books, etc. Keep the art options open if you can. You may have chosen a field of study that involves your art. Lucky again, as long as there is enough demand for your talents or you have done well enough in college to attract long-term employment when you graduate. If you land a job related to your specific field (of art), you have the best of both worlds if you choose to marry. Whether or not you can simultaneously play the roles of artist, spouse and parent without losing your mind is a topic for another series of articles found elsewhere.
What about you? College is not for you, college is not financially possible for you, or you just don’t want that kind of debt to worry about at such a young age. Keep your chin up. It sounds as though you are already wise beyond your years. If you have worked hard all through high school there is definitely hope for you. You have decided that you are an artist not only by choice but due to your current circumstances. How can you make the most of it? Keep it in focus just as you have been doing and begin to see not only the creative side of your art but also the business side of your art. Business? Yes, business.
So, you are the image that comes to mind when a person thinks of the word artist—working on your artwork during all of your free-time. Now you must realize that it is better to move forward with goals and plans than to move forward blindly. It certainly appears as though you are an artist. You have no trouble with productivity. Your body of work includes numerous pieces. But do you have any idea how you are going to make your artwork known? Artists dream that each piece of art will somehow miraculously attract its rightful owner. What a lovely thought. If only it were true. In most cases, pieces of art don’t have legs to walk around doing their own promoting without their artist’s or someone else’s assistance. Good luck finding assistance promoting your work. Guess what? You have just become an art promoter.
How do you proceed in promoting your art? That would be jumping a step ahead in our discussion. Your productivity has proven you know how to budget your time. Hopefully, you are just as good at budgeting your money–exactly the topic of the next article in this series. See you there . . .