[jyunwai]

Most other comments so far have viewed this artist's lifestyle negatively, as he wrote that he got by via abusing various policies and tax fraud (via "[hallucinating] a DJ software skin" to claim as a business expense). But he's an interesting person for sticking to his craft for close to a decade now: he has persisted in working hard to produce artwork and submit it for exhibition.

However, to what extent is this lifestyle necessary as an artist? A common piece of advice for many artists is to consider developing a steady career independent of one's art, which lets them afford their lifestyle as an artist (such as by writing, creating artwork, or performing during the evenings and weekends). But the effectiveness of this advice must vary for the individual: it's also common for many people to drop their artwork or stop taking it seriously in favour of their paying career.

For this artist in particular, I wonder if a steady job would have been a positive or negative to his art. In this case, the income would have reduced his suffering especially as he's dealing with medical debt. It could have even granted him additional artistic freedom, as he writes about the pressures to "defect" and his acceptance of more commercial work for money. Yet at the same time, it's possible that part of the desperation is behind his drive as an artist—though it's also risky to romanticize this desperation.

[Thorrez]

> "[hallucinating] a DJ software skin" to claim as a business expense

I don't think he's claiming a hallucinated skin as a business expense. Rather he's saying the Turbotax UI has some slider in it, and he hallucinates that Turbotax is instead DJ software, and he slides that slider around like a DJ would slide a sound modulator slider around, arriving at a fraudulent number.

[hattmall]

I don't think the lifestyle is related to the art but the person. I have friends with similar lifestyles and stories even down to the avoiding homelessness by pet sitting, and being shitty at it. Yet art or any sort of creative endeavor isn't part of the equation. Then I have some friends deeply devoted to their art that wouldn't ever consider approaching homelessness. The most successful artist I know is a landscaper and he could certainly live a successful by any standard life on purely his art but it's just not in his nature to live in that way.

All people, artistic or not, have a certain tolerance for ignoring social standards. Some of the best artists are known to have a very high tolerance. But there's millions more people with similarly chaotic existences that don't care about art and creative activities at all.

[rebuilder]

The common wisdom is , if you’re going to be an artist, it better be because you can be nothing else. It’s that hard.

So, it’s a rare person indeed who can be a serious artist and support themselves financially some other way

[filoleg]

Our choices about what we do (as a craft/career/industry/etc.) aren’t solely dictated by things like “because I can be nothing else.” Mostly because I doubt that most people (including myself) would even have the ability to answer that question for themselves.

I have no idea how everyone ended up doing what they are doing, but I know that mine wasnt dictated by that at all. At 18, when I was about to graduate high school, I had absolutely zero sense about who I can or cannot be. Over a decade later, I have a slightly better grasp on it. But it barely moved the needle, and I still have no idea who i can or cannot be.

I picked CS (computer science) as my degree. I had almost no experience with writing code (turbopascal 5 years prior for a semester doesn’t count), and i was behind most of my classmates in that aspect (who tested out of the first two intro courses, since they either had HS internships or AP CS credits or just personal projects like published apps and guthub repos).

Well actually, originally I picked EE (electrical engineering), but then I switched during the second day of the summer orientation for incoming freshmen to CS. Once we got to registering for the first semester of classes on the second day, I saw the choice of classes I had vs. what CS students had. The descriptions just sounded more interesting to me.

Did I base my choice at any given point based on who I thought I could be? Not at all. I had zero knowledge that led me to believe I would be a more capable CS graduate (as opposed to EE). I also chose not to go for pre-med, despite my parents’ wishes, but it also had nothing to do with who I thought I could or couldn’t be. I am glad I didnt go that route, because after developing an ongoing friendship with a guy who eventually became a licensed dermatologist, I learned a lot of things that led me to believe I couldn’t be a doctor (not without losing my sanity, at least).

I guess the point along this longwinded reply is, I don’t buy it even for a second that a significant number of artists picked their field because they didnt think they could be something else. Most of them are people just like you and me, and I believe they are just as aware that they have no idea as to whom they can and cannot be. At the very best, they would have a short list of who they know they cannot be (just like i know i could never be a doctor).

[hattmall]

It's pretty reasonable to make a living if you're a decent painter, musician, or photographer. There's just not a great overlap of art and business skills.

[MuffinFlavored]

> However, to what extent is this lifestyle necessary as an artist?

I have a stable career and lots of disposable income and I've been to 1/10th the places this guy has been to / done 1/10th the things / probably have 1/10th the stories/life experiences/friends

[bsder]

It's pretty sad, actually, how much negative vibe is here.

This man is hustle culture personified. What's the problem?

Alternatively, he's the epitome of a "disruptor". What's the issue?

Oh, perhaps it's that he's holding up a light at what is at the end of the tunnel if we keep going the way society is--complete instability for the peons who are completely at the whim of a small number of the rich.

[strken]

He got drunk, did a bunch of coke, and stole a brass penguin from the hotel he was staying at; also a spot of tax fraud and theft of a suit, but I care less about that.

I get that the lobby of the Hilton is not an art gallery, but an artist stealing a sculpture is not hustle culture personified, it's theft of the exact kind he should hate most.

The story is great and I appreciate it on its own merits but he's kind of a dick.

[hattmall]

Homosexual prostitution for drugs is a long way from most people's definition of hustle culture.

Also how is he a disruptor? It seems like he's someone that has been VERY lucky to get opportunities many people strive for and he has fucked them up.

Then he acts like his only options are fraud and theft because there's always someone closing the door on him for being himself.

[projectazorian]

> Homosexual prostitution...is a long way from most people's definition of hustle culture.

The slang term for this is literally "hustling"

[11101010001100]

Oldest profession is not a hustle?

[roughly]

> For this artist in particular, I wonder if a steady job would have been a positive or negative to his art.

There’s a lot to read between the lines here, but if I were a betting man, I wouldn’t put a lot on the author being the sort to maintain a steady job for the long run.

I don’t mean that as a critique - the world needs all sorts, but capitalism’s got more strict opinions.

[chefandy]

I think people confuse prudent with good. I don't think this person would be delusional enough to think their choices were prudent by "polite" society's standards, especially when describing himself as a crust punk-- a subculture that prides itself on eschewing damn near everything that "polite" society values. However, it's also pretty bullshit that someone who makes art that people want and has an opinion interesting enough to have academic cachet needs to essentially bottom feed to stay afloat in the most fundamental ways. Art is important to humanity, but capitalism isn't super great at supporting things with intrinsic cultural value but no mercantile utility.

Especially since the popularization of AI image generators, many folks in the tech crowd-- few of whom could name a single influential work, author, or organization in arts scholarship-- have unwarrantedly strong opinions on the nature of art. They tend to cite the lack of market value in fine art as justification for neither paying artists for their ingested works, nor for the amalgams the produced models spit out. But when confronted with the fact that most artists are not working in fine art, but working commercial artists, they will cite their commercially concerns as evidence that modern art and artists are soulless and not worth protecting to begin with.

Honestly, the longer you work in the arts the more you shrug your shoulders at it. People have spent millennia holding all but the most famous artists and designers in contempt while art in some form, deliberately and thoughtfully made by someone with great skill, imbues nearly every aspect of our cultures. There's always a new cohort of people wanting to extract more out of artists for their own gain-- either in art or income-- while calling artists selfish for wanting a slice and telling them to get a "real job". Such is life.

[cess11]

Why would that be risky?

[atoav]

As someone teaching at an art school/university I can assure you that unhealthy drives for art often (but not nearly always!) have hard psychological causes. That brings all kins of hardships with itself, many of those artists live unhealthy, often impoverished, rarely stable lives. And while the romatic view of the impoverished artist is a popular one, these people are rarely as free as they like they would be and I have seen suicides happen.

Most artists I know would love to have stability, yet in society there is rarely space and funding for the things they are doing. I know people who had to move their ateliers 4 times in 10 years, just because the landlords use them to make the rental/area more attractive to a better pating clientel and then kick them out.

[cess11]

Life isn't stable, if it was it wouldn't have managed to stick around for this long. Hundreds of millions of people are impoverished, are they unable to make art?

I'm also not sure what your suggestion is. Should aspiring artists create corporations and live from the labour of other people, to create something you'd consider freedom for themselves while intruding on the freedom of others? Or do you consider it freedom to be in someone else's service under the threat of poverty?

Some people also agree with songs like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFkmRp_G2uo

[atoav]

I am not sure what you mean, the history of art is a history of rich/powerful people giving poor/lower ranking people money for doing said art. Artists have never been truly free in that sense — thst was my point.

Sure the art scene in parts has become entrepreneurial, but quite frankly most commercial art is either tasteless shit for tasteless customers, the works of old artists who are two decades away from dying or the works of a popular one-trick-pony on borrowed time. Who has a more hard time here are the newcomers or people who are doing it to hold up a mirror to society. But your society won't get the artists that are two decades from dying if they didn't make it somehow up to that point.

Now I gladly live in a european nation where society means that we look out for each other and I'd have no problem if more of my tax money goes towards culture. Now I know the sentiment towards commons and investing in your own infrastructure and society is way different in the US, but I don't even see it that way. I profit from the money I put there by being allowed to live in a society where people can dare to try things that are the opposite of commercial no-brainers.

[cess11]

"I am not sure what you mean, the history of art is a history of rich/powerful people giving poor/lower ranking people money for doing said art. Artists have never been truly free in that sense — thst was my point."

To me the history of art is quite a bit broader than european elites wanting to protect their investments and tax evasion schemes, basically 'haussing' the value of what their predecessors commissioned from painters.

Among other things, there's what might be called 'folk art'. Songs and music that narrate more or less mythical history, a practice predating european urban elites with their mecenate style of commissioned paintings. 'Street art'. Drawing a dick on a random brick wall is a very old tradition.

Personally I'm not sure I believe in commercial art. That would be an expression and possibly an exploitation of economic relations, and not an expression or invention of humanity. In part my suspicion against the idea that relative wealth and convenience would be good for art stems from this, it implies a disconnect from most of contemporary and historic human life.