Is this your real job?

"Self Portrait with Beret and Collar Turned Up Collar"  Rembrandt 1659

Is this your real job?

I only take art related jobs.  When those jobs morph into a non-artist job, I lose interest and soon enough I start getting those nudges from God to leave. So, as you can imagine, my income is unpredictable. 

Here’s a funny story.  Once I took a job as a cashier for some friends of mine that had a craft store in the Williamsburg Mall in Virginia.  It was minimum wage, but we were broke so I took it.  One day Bill, the owner, accidentally scheduled 2 people on a Saturday afternoon, so he sent me home.  I asked if I could plop my easel down near the window of his store since I always kept my quick sketching stuff in the car.  I agreed to pay him 25% commission, which is actually very low.  I didn’t think I would do much, but he and his wife Jill had so much faith in me, they new I could do it. It turned out that this mistake on the schedule was one of those Godly nudges.  I made around $300 in about 3 hours that day so he fired me.  I sketched for he and his wife Jill for 9 years after that on Saturdays.

Most full-time artists do other art jobs.  They might work in a gallery or an art store.  They might do dog portraits.  They could be caricature artists or quick profile portrait artists at Busch Gardens. Perhaps they work as an art teacher. My friend Rita Kirkman does it all.  We used to sketch together many decades ago at Busch.  She still does it at a mall during the holidays and at a few festivals.  I can certainly do a few quick sketches, but my days of making $1000 in a few hours at a festival are over. Most Saturdays in my prime I could do well over a hundred faces in around 9 hours, 5 days a week.  Now I have arthritis, no surprise there.  After work all of us artists would go out dancing and bring our sketch books with us.  It was a great job.

I replaced this income with doing painting parties.  They are very hard work, but I make it look super fun because they are usually drunk.  But hey, I have an income.  I also teach in galleries, from my studio, and in art centers.    

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Lady Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes" By John Singer Sargent.  This may be an example of his quick portraits, or possibly a study for a painting.

Did you know why Rembrandt did so many self-portraits?  It is because he was a celebrity but he was also broke.  So, he would do self portraits and sell them!  Sorry I don’t remember where I read that.  John Singer Sargent apparently did his version of quick sketches in his studio for an extra income.  Not sure where I read that either, but I remembered it.If you are burning to know my references I can find them on my teetering bookshelf.

Also, keep in mind that making art is only a portion of what artists do.  Before Covid I averaged around 6 painting parties per month.  I have to do inventory, purchase, organize, prepare the canvases, make new easy canvases to teach, load the stuff into their containers then load that into the car, blah blah blah.  You don’t want to hear the rest of my details.  I have an entire additional set of chores for my fine art classes. I do a tremendous amount of research for those.  My students in the fine art classes are sober, at least as far as I can tell, so I really have to be on the ball for them.

The point is that only a rather small chunk of time is left in my pre-covid life for making art that sings to me. I have many art friends, (I call them FARTS, Friends who make ArtS). and I have also read this about the financial and emotional struggle of master artists, most of whom also taught. So, to answer this humorous but very common questions, Yes.This is my real job, and I am ready for a vacation.