Dear Prudence: Artfully Employed

[minoanmiss]

I am a very talented artist. I am internationally known in my field. I work regularly. I am respected by people in my industry. I make very little money from it. I think the reason for this is I have debilitating social anxiety and ADHD, which means I completely fail at the business end of it. I recently broke down and got a part-time desk job to bring in some cash, until, hopefully, either or both of my businesses take off and I can quit. Even though, for the most part, everyone is nice to me at the desk job, I die a little inside every time I go. I am a thirtysomething woman with a master’s degree and an international portfolio, and I spend my days scanning and answering phones. How do I keep my self-esteem in this situation?

A: This is much easier said than done, but can you work on disconnecting your self-esteem from your desk job? Artists have been working day jobs to pay the bills practically since the beginning of time! Maybe connecting with others in similar situations, or checking out memoirs and biographies about creative people who lived similar lives would be helpful? And keep in mind, lots of people who aren’t internationally known artists work jobs about which they aren’t passionate and still manage to feel good about themselves—by focusing on their families or friendships or hobbies or just the kind of people they want to be. Try to tap into some of that kind of thinking. And in the meantime, can you take some time to start to get help with your social anxiety and ADHD? If those are the only things standing between you and making an income from your art, it seems worth trying to find ways to navigate living with them so you can have the life you really want.

Comments

[melannen]

A lot of people have had to take jobs they're overqualified for or not what they're experienced in. It only becomes a problem when your pride gets in the way. If you have to, think of the job as part of the experience of being an artist and something that will add to your art.

I also agree with minoanmiss that if you're bad at business stuff, you should hire someone. Even if, at this point, it means funneling all or nearly all of your art income into paying them and you're living only off the dayjob, it will hopefully be worth it in the end. It's hard to say what exactly that person should look like without knowing what field you're in. (Honestly, even if you were handling the business stuff just fine on your own, I would recommend that the minute you can afford it, because every second you spend on admin is time you're not spending creating art. I have known too many people who burn themselves running the business and it fails because they didn't have time or energy leftover to make any art to sell.)

Unfortunately, hiring someone, unless you are very lucky, is also very hard if you have social anxiety, adhd, and no business experience. And even if you do hire someone, you should know enough about the job you're hiring them for to know if they're doing a competent job.

You say you have a master's degree, but did that include any significant amount of training on running your art as a business? If so, is there someone at your alma mater you can reach out to for mentorship or resources? A lot of art degrees don't include any business training, though, or not enough, which is a big failure of the system. You don't magically learn how to run a business just by being good at your art, and there's lots of neurotypical people who run aground on that too! (Ask me sometime for the story of the very talented artist friend who had been running a "business" for five years and not yet realized he needed to, a, figure out the base cost of a print run, and b, set his sales price higher than that.)

This sounds like a good time to step back from focusing on art for a bit and learn about business. You have options! Do you have any trusted friends or family who have experience with accounting, administrative work, or running a small business (any small business, of any size - even the person who sells knitting at craft fairs may have experience to share.) Would they be willing to look over your books and files and give you advice on what to change on the business end, as a favor or for a one-time mate's rate? Is there a community college or community center nearby that's offering low-priced classes on basic skills for running a business? A business incubator or community development corporation nearby? Are there relevant MOOCs, or video courses you can access via your local library? (Actually, going to your local library and asking for help finding learning resources for small business owners is a great place to start. Even just a "for dummies" book from the library is more than a lot of artists I've met are starting with.) Are there regular clients or other artists that you're friendly with who you could ask for advice, or at least war stories, about running a business in your field?

And finally - the majority of small businesses never take off, and the majority of small business owners have at least one failed business behind them. Be aware of the sunk costs fallacy, and be ready to admit it if something isn't working, and figure out how to change course.

[melannen]

I should also add that after 10+ years of being one of the people who comes on to sort out the filing and show you what a spreadsheet is - afaik, once you reach a level of skill high enough that you can accuractely assess your skill, making a small art business succeed comes down to three things:

1. Connections - tough if you have social anxiety, but if you've got an international audience already, you're farther along than most people!
2. Consistency - tough if you have ADHD, but if you can deliver the product that clients are expecting, and meet a deadline, and produce art frequently enough that you stay on everyone's radar, you are far ahead of 99% of artists. And if you can't do these things, it doesn't really matter how much talent or formal education you have.
3. Accounting - a surprising number of artists are so bad at this that they end up selling their art at a loss. You don't have to have a degree, but you have to be capable of tracking income and expenses well enough to know if you're making or losing money on something. And nobody can give you a hard line of what is a good business risk and what isn't, but you should at least be aware of when something you're doing *is* a risk, and when it isn't.