Since When Is Art Not A Business

You have to be careful that you neither forget nor get caught up in the fact that professional art is a Business just like any other. As long as you realize this before you decide to pursue it for your career rather than as your passion outside work, you can guard yourself as best as you can from any pain or stress that comes from living commission to commission.

As the exact opposite to the music teacher who can separate her work music from her home music, I have another friend who teachers music who hates to talk about it in her free time. This woman has always loved music and knew as a child this was all she wanted to do for a living. She moved away to become a music teacher and everything was wonderful. Then she got married and moved back here where her new husband worked and where there was huge competition. She had to go into business herself. She teaches the same composers and genres that she personally loves in her own home. As such, there is no separation between her personal and professional life. She no longer wants to talk about music when she isn't teaching. Yet this was always her passion.

What happened to her is my greatest fear in being an artist. It has kept me working at other things that do not interest me deeply so that I can love to write or sing in my spare time. Singing is my sanctuary. It is like a spiritual experience for me to sing in a choir, even when the music isn't religious in nature. I need to love singing. If I grow to worry or hate or feel any other negative emotion I might never get back what I feel when I sing. Meanwhile, I was working as a bookkeeper. That's right-nothing to do with writing, singing, acting, or painting.

What of acting? Big movie stars of today like Tom Hanks or George Clooney can demand large paychecks. In the studio system era, even the biggest stars didn't make the kind of paychecks similar in amount when you allow for inflation. Some people may then think that acting is an exception-such people are dead wrong.

Movie stars with huge paychecks are simply a tiny number of actors whose names you have heard. There are only two percent of actors who belong to the Screen Actor's Guild who are working at any one time. And to get a union card, you have to have worked in 5 projects first in a city that wants to hire only union members for everything except, maybe, extra work. Who knows what that percentage actually is if you try to count the number of actors who do not belong to either SAG or AFTRA as well as the theatre actors?

Theatre-now there is a profession you enter for love alone. Even the biggest names on the marquee take a big cut in pay for the privilege of performing in front of a live audience. Whether you are referring to a play, musical, or dance, theatre people live, breathe, and dream of Art. They are among the most dedicated artists you will see and they enjoy their career more than most anyone else in the arts. This is despite the fact that they can consider themselves lucky if it takes only six months to get a job on Broadway. Even then, they may need a second job or more than one roommate to help pay the rent.

Writing is a business too. It is a dying print business that is now becoming more and more online. I am not happy about this trend. I would prefer to publish in print alone. But that is not forward thinking, nor realistic. Books are not quite dead, though the condition is ill. However, famous newspapers have folded and people tend to get their news over the Internet. E-zines grow in popularity.