You’re Not Worth Much Unless You’re Selling It
Am I worth less as an artist if there’s not a monetary value attached to what I make?
How come commerce and talent have become so inextricably bound?
I’m not saying I don’t want to make a living doing what I love. I do. I believe our passions can also be our careers.
But I also believe we contain multitudes far beyond what someone is willing to pay us. Far beyond how an algorithm responds to our output. Far beyond whether or not you can throw an advertisement on what I produce.
I refuse to let that be where the story ends.
I refuse to let a marketing strategy, or whether or not I made the front page become the final arbiter on my worth as an artist.
As long as I can remember, I’ve sold my art.
And, if I’m being honest, for almost as long as I can remember, I’ve tied my sense of worth as an artist to its income and its outcome, to the opportunities it created, the attention it received.
I’m tired of carrying that equation around.
That isn’t to say I don’t want to profit from my work. It isn’t to say I don’t believe in building a sustainable creative career. I do.
But I also think there’s something sacred that gets lost when every drawing, every painting, every idea has to justify itself with a dollar sign before it earns the right to exist.
Lately I’ve been trying something different.I’m taking a walk on the wild side. I’m trying to see again.
I’m breaking down the walls, throwing out the guardrails, kicking away the training wheels, and allowing myself to make work simply because something inside me wants to make it.
Art is my dowsing rod.
It has always been the thing that helps me discover what’s buried beneath the surface. It points toward meaning. Toward healing. Toward spirituality. Toward questions I didn’t even know I was asking.
It has always been so much more than a product, so much more than a consumer debt elimination tool.
This morning I sat in a diner for three hours, doing a still life. These were the thoughts that came to me as I walked out the door, these were the thoughts that stayed with me.
Maybe the value of our work isn’t something we discover after someone is willing to buy it.
Maybe some of its greatest value exists long before anyone else ever sees it, in the moment we get to share with it.
Because we live in a world today where every second is spoken for and every penny has its purpose.
What if our art was just for us for a few moments every now and again? What if we started rejuvenating ourselves with our art the way we invigorate all of our fans and patrons?
The beautiful thing is it doesn’t have to be a What if.
