[klum]

It seems to me a lot of the people making a living out of art or other "commercially challenging" occupations have cultivated a passion for the business part of it as well.

I don't mean that in a cynical sense. If you view business and making money as a "necessary evil", a taint on the face of your pure artistry, then you're probably going to be miserable trying to make a living. I prefer to think about it as finding a way to create value for others through what you like to do.

[Noos]

The flip side though is that the business minded artists often produce the most banal work. James Patterson has made 700 million dollars over a decade from his writing and cowriting. His books dominate the shelves, but as art they barely rise to pulp status. Yet his latest novel is cowritten with ex-president Bill Clinton.

He's created value, of course. But what he does isn't art, its mass production of kitsch on an industrial scale.