Hey @storytellers1, sorry to learn about the videos getting demonetised. But "How an artist turns pro?" and the Shutter Island video are two of my most favourite videos not only on your channel but on the entire RUclips. I have been feeling a bit low these days so I decided to watch 'How an artist turns pro', but I was pretty annoyed that you put it behind a paywall. The video is such a masterpiece that the membership amount is a steal of a deal. Also therapy is way more expensive than this. Thanks for making videos!
As a writer, I don’t choose to starve. I don’t know of very many sane people who would. It’s simply that I would rather focus on doing what I love than be a corporate slave. Quite often, struggling financially is the price one pays. The reason why the best artists struggle with money is because they focus on pleasing themselves instead of the market. Their work only appeals to niche markets. However, it can be very difficult for an artist to break through all of the noise and standout to the audience that might finance them. That is the plight of the artist.
Honestly i think the patron youtuber is the best version of this. They can make widespread videos that are seen by the small crowd that agrees with them. In there they get funding by a lot of middle class people and even 1 or 2 whales. So it works nicely. Also when i said widespread i did not mean make a video about why the curtains are red and get 8 million views in a week. By widespread i mean you do not have to go to a museum to see them but rather have access to youtube and either accidently find them because your interesting in the topic or the algorithm actually does its job. So it makes it a lot easier.
I love the part where you say (and I'm paraphrazing) that "true artists might miss a few notes but you can feel that they are putting their hearts and souls into it". Impeccable statement. Subscribed!
MOST artist come from the middle class because those people have the time and money to create and become better. Also, sometimes if you want to succeed it's about who you know
Ireland passed a law last year allowing universal basic income for artists. So, yeah....being an artist doesn't mean having to starve in the near future.
@@funkymunkyOf the many bad things Irish politicians are doing, this is only one of the few good ones. Irish artists are getting €325 per week unconditionally. I'm not sure how it works entirely, but only certified artists could receive them so that no one else could pretend to be artist and just receive free benefits. I doubt you'd get UBI if you're already a rich Irish celebrity like Cillian Murphy or Daniel Day Lewis though.
@@impalabeeper Thanks for clarifying! To be eligible as an artist, do you need a business in your name? How does the Irish government go about certifying artists and verifying eligibility? Thanks, again, for sharing: this is music to my ears, even though I don't live in Ireland!
It’s a pilot scheme of universal basic income of €325 a week which is not worth a whole based on the rent costs and living costs in Ireland. Over 9000 artists applied for the scheme and only 2000 got selected. It was a complete random selection but one of the qualifying factors was your income and living situation. While it’s better than nothing, they still have a long way to go in supporting the arts in Ireland. They seem more than happy to destroy art spaces for hotels in Dublin City Centre.
Thanks for the book recommendations! I'm more of a crafter than an artist, but I fully agree that you shouldn't starve to show your creativity or work a stressful lifeless job for the sake of money. I'm more hobby centric now than I was when I willing to overwork myself for the sake of profit.
the way van Gogh worked isn't a career choice, he had a mental illness... otherwise he could've worked at his brother's art gallery, while producing art at the same time. This was what Trollope did, a couple of hours of writing in the morning, then went to work at the post office. Still managed to do all the writing he could ever do, and became one of the most prolific writer... this is in Pressfield's book too, I think
I don't think the Starving Artist (tm) archetype is romanticized, it's more just the reality that art almost never makes enough money for you to live on, and so critically acclaimed artists are usually poor. Speaking of writing specifically, I sold a novel for a lot of money, and the publication process from it being sold to it coming out was almost two years. During that time I was paid in four instalments, taxed on both, in addition to the money my agent got. My publishers wouldn't buy another book until they found out how many copies the current book sold, and by the time my book came out, living expenses had whittled away that advance and I had the choice between get a job or be a starving artist.
This video ignores a very crucial fact of a true artist; their anti-authoritarian, anti-statusquo mentality. It takes an enormous effort and time in between creating art to gather the mindset that produces great works of art. It's not about the grind of the craft, many aspiring artists today have focused so much on craft that they have totally forgotten a core tenet of what artistry is about; to have something to say, something to express, something to form out of the chaos of our reality. Some artists can be unproductive over the course of a decade before creating a great work of art because sometimes it takes that amount of time to not only find inspiration, but also to form ideas and visions for that work of art. The distractions of this modern market-driven economy that is grinding people into burnout just through its basic core mechanics is killing true artistry because there's never any time to criticize this status quo, to be antiauthoritarian against the powers that drive society. This rejection of the norms is fundamental to true art because something that aligns with the status quo just becomes content, not art. We celebrate artists because they challenged common thought, because they triggered new perspectives. It's not just about producing emotions. There are tons of sentimental movies that play the heartstrings but are fundamentally empty. Producing emotions can be done through just empathic manipulation, but actual emotions through a great work of art is a total assault on the senses and emotions on a far deeper level than any of the shallow bullshit that hacks produce. Today there are so many, especially young people, who's been mislead into believing that content and art is one and the same. They do not understand what art truly is. And it's this that becomes a problem when analyzing the struggling artist. They're not poor or struggling because they cannot balance selling their art with creating art, they are poor and struggling because the dedication itself requires them to reject the norms in order to find the sublime. It is essential for actually producing great works of art. The only reason some manage to combine success and art is because their art sold itself, it was presented at the right time in the right place and took off. We shouldn't demand artists to be good at business. What should be the norm is to let artists create and struggle in their analysis of existence and reality and stop romanticizing productivity of content. Artists require a salesperson and marketing people, those are the ones who's responsible for bringing art into the view of the public, those are the ones who should be responsible for pushing art into good business. There has to be a stop to the constant demand on artists to sell themselves. It hurts the art itself and is only pushed for by people who have never created anything of value themselves. It's not a privilege to be able to work undisturbed as an artist, it's vital for the artist to be left alone in order to create something of actual value. If people actually cared about art at all, that's what's required; leave them alone to create and then if you like it, help sell their art. And that's what should be the norm. We need more people who are good at selling and marketing artist's work. Look at the channel "Blind Dweller" for example. He has a section that focuses on showing unknown artists work and does so in as much detail and analysis as he does with the well known artists he usually talks about. That's the kind of help artists need and if people actually and truly care about art and not just posing as liking art for some status reason; then spread the unknown artists work that you like, into the public and view of an audience. It's remarkable how the individualistic neoliberal and capitalist mindset has entangled young people into being alone. Everyone needs to help each other out and stop believing in this productivity bullshit that's infested the world of art. Business people and marketers should handle the sales and business, NOT artists.
Well formulated comment. While I think there is room for different variances of the balance (or lack there of) between making art and selling, I agree wholly that the quality of making work, and spirit-lifting soul-fulfilling work at that, isn't necessarily tied to making profit (unless that's part of the work). I would like to pose that it's possible for artists to toe the line of making profit, for even under a communist system there is still the incentive to produce profit, and reserve energy and time for the that is the art practice that functions as a mode of the artists existence and methods of interacting with the world, the universe.
This is a bit of a romantic outlook because it's not possible. Like not even remotely possible unless only a handful of people ever achieve the title of "artist". I also think it's a misreading of art history when you consider the social and business savvy artists have always had to have to make it (outside of the lucky few that aquire a rich patron). Artists have always hid deeper meanings in crowd-pleasing content, worked projects they didn't want to work to make ends meat, etc etc. You could even argue that the toil associated with the pursuit of making it as an artist is THE road to achieving the "sublime". I agree that in a perfect world we would simply support artists so they could pursue the sublime full time, but we don't live in a perfect world. And even if we did I would not at all be surprised to find that the same number of people end up finding the sublime with or without the help anyway. Bukowski worked at the post office while building his body of work, Shakespeare wrote crowd-pleasers while simultaneously reinventing the concept of being a human and the English language, The birth of Venus was commissioned by a dude who wanted to jerk off on his back, and I edit videos for RUclipsrs and corporate brands while working toward the mastery of my own medium. And I feel I'm in good company by doing so. The artists who make it are hustlers and always have been.
You don't do art for money. You do it because you have to. Because it is screaming to come out of you. Because it brings you joy to create it. If you make money from it awesome! Even better!
It takes long hours to create significant works of art. How can it even be accomplished on top of a day job these days? Everyplace that pays the rent requires overtime and every place that doesn't necessitates a second job. Commercial art is trash. Saying the artist should just draw for hire is like saying a young woman should give up on love and find a sugar daddy. Ridiculous.
You're right, I totally agree, an artist is doomed to be steamrolled by life, you can't just draw whatever you want and earn money, if you want do draw for hire, you'd have to whore yourself out, in my ten years of drawing, I've done a few comissions, two or three of those for money, the rest for free, usually it's a portrait, a pencil copy of a photo, it's weird, but people apparently like that, I felt like a human printer with hands. People have offered a lot of money for drawing NSFW, or really weird fetish pictures, I declined those. I don't want to write examples of what people asked, but it's just gross. I'd rather not do that.
so long as we live under capitalism and can only turn art into commodities in hopes to earn a living, or having ourselves and our ability to continue making art reliant on the patronage of the rich, there will always be starving artists.
I don’t understand why Vincent Van Gogh’s life is presented so truncated. Why it is seldom explained that before he was a master artist, he was a master art salesman in a number of major European cities. He was absolutely aware of what was selling at the time. And he knew what would be considered breaking the rules of the day, as a result of being a master art salesman… Also, why is his spiritual life is not spoken of. The history of his relationship with Christianity. How organized religion thwarted this pursuit of spirituality…
A lot of conventions and rules were yet to be dismantled prior to Van Gogh’s work being created. Even most impressionists were fairly beholden to the rules of light and nature. His work would probably have an easier chance selling maybe 50-60 years later. Historical context is crucial here. Just saying he was an awkward mentally ill person is really reductive
I am a (Dutch) artist who travels the world for work in a pretty big band. In many ways I am a part of a project that in many ways has reached the top of the game, however I still struggle a lot financially and very much live the same artist life as most struggling artists. One could indeed wonder, what makes a successful artist? is it when you have reached a monetary treshold where you make the same as you would in another successful career, or does success mean the world, big studios etc etc has finally noticed your art?
Mmm while success is a thing on the plate we're discussing, id respectfully point out that you're missing the point on this, since the video is about to starve or not to starve in your artistic career. If you're not starving, well congrats, from a starving musician. If You don't feel successful in the world you're part off while you're NOT starving, then yeah, it's a different matter, for another vid maybe. U see, starvation it's a delicate matter, wich success can (wether it comes the way we like or not) put an end to. Being successful and feeling successful are two different matters, one objectively impactful and life changing, and the other subjectively worth the time to reflect upon in order to pursue the life that makes You happy, sacrifices included, but nevertheless a joy if it feels right for ya. Starvation is on the objective side of the discussion, but yeah, there s some subjective outlook for the mindset of a starving artist wich have a role in the financial struggle. Point is, You can FEEL successful even starving, or going unnoticed, but thats not the issue, we're talking about starving, not succeeding. All the best. if you're where You are, then some compromise or sacrifice it took from You to be there, thats admirable to me.
I'm a published writer but I am still a starving artist who suffers from debilitating anxiety attacks. My publisher published me not even reading my goddamned book and changed the title because he thought the title sounded like the name of a medicine he took. The title was The @taraxy and changed it to Last Eden. What more trite and dull title this could be? I wanted a title that might stir the intellectual imagination of the reader daring to challenge it. But no, they thought they knew better and now they are jobless as I am right now because they swindled the money of the publishing house that wasn't even theirs. So, the only reason why I was published was by the recommendation of a teacher that I had who directed a writing workshop where I presented my novels. If not, I wouldn't have been published. By the way, my native language is not English but Spanish and I've been trying to be published in an English language publishing house after the experience that I got from publishing science fiction in Spanish. The Spanish language writers deride science fiction because they deemed too childish, but what I write is as serious as 1984 and Brave New World. But after all this little rant of mine is that I didn't choose to be a starving artist and a suffering artist but just it happens that I am.
I like the message, but it is ignorant. The market for art and creative endeavours is very small (mass consumption like generic netflix series doesn't equate to art: that's like comparing fast food to fine dining). Similar to sports, not everyone can be a professional; not for a lack of trying, but because competition is so fierce. The reason artists often refuse the market is because commercial interest often contradict artistic interests. Look at the music industry. Most creatives are not shying from making money because they are scared of rejection - not sure where this assumption even came from.
The worth of my art is the worth i give it, and they're priceless to me. Idc if anyone sees it less, only that i they're mine to enjoy and everyone's missing out is my personal humor.
Excellent video! Thank you for sharing it with us. I have a suggestion for improvement. It would enhance the viewer's experience if you could include references to your films within the video itself. This way, viewers would have a clearer understanding of the context and could appreciate your work even more. Best regards,
That is quite sad, Van Gogh is an amazing artist, one of the greatest painters, yet his life is so tragic. Many artists face that as well, not being able to be successful, this causes depression, artblock and mental problems. As an artist myself I struggled a lot of time, trying and failing to be successful, eventually after many failures to find a fan base I decided to stop trying. This is now just a hobby for me and means to express myself. I'm no Van Gogh, but I certainly feel like him, when your art is being either ignored or hated, if I do offer to draw for money, nobody asks, these days I just do it for free and yet people don't care, so I've come to realization that I should stop trying to please people, now I'm just drawing for myself and friends or family. I don't know how other artists survive on commissions alone, patreons and etc, it's something that will always baffle me. You either need to be aware of trends or draw NSFW. I've been drawing for at least 10 years and during that time I think I've earned no more than 50 dollars, which is funny. I don't starve, I work at a car factory, and draw in the free time. My total fanbase is like 10 people, most of whom are family and friends, haha. Some people asks me, if I'm drawing so good, why am I not successful, "why can't you just sell? Earn money by drawing commissions". Literally nobody is interested in that, and I understand completely. I'd draw it for free anyways, because I don't see much value in my own drawings, they have meaning to me, but not a financial one
Feel as though some divine intervention had recommended this video to me. That it wasn't the algorithm or anything along those lines, But I am going through a moment of doubt in a moment of strife in my art. I appreciate your video thank you
We romanticise the Starving artist because making money requires compromise, it’s always an exchange. Money always comes from someone and you can’t ignore them if you want it to exchange hands. To be an exceptional artist you have to be able to risk not being understood or appreciated, to not compromise your vision but explore and develope it, even at the risk it affects your livelihood. The Starving artist is the symbolic pinnacle of pure and uncompromising creative self expression and exploration. Something many creatives yearn for.
A lot of great film directors came from wealth: Bergman, French New Wave directors, Christopher Nolan, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Terrence Malick, Sophia Coppola, Orson Welles
No artist in his/er right mind would ever dare dream of wanting to make art while starving. I'm more willing to accept the stereotype of artists constructing their masterpieces in stages from gradual intoxication by booze or episodes of getting high while working a boring part-time job that barely pays the bills rather than making art while being malnourished in a slum. For one thing, all art requires more than just imagination and talent, even genius. It requires sources of support, which mustn't be confined to friends and family but from others out there who are willing to understand that the artist is working within certain limitations yet aspires to escape the mundanity and mediocrity existing within the rigid parameters of social conventions. Furthermore, the artist should understand beforehand that whatever is created must not solely fulfill his/er sole visions, but should seek to transcend certain limits and inspire others to do something that goes beyond what has been either proven or accepted as possible, regardless of whether the art produced appeals to certain sensitivities and/or tastes.
I imagine it's because they always feel suppressed by a lack of resources. They used to need patrons, so they had to paint pictures of the fat wives of their patrons. They couldn't paint what they wanted to paint. So, when they score a windfall, they would rush out to buy paint and take a cab to the beach. When Stu Sutcliff won an award of some hundreds of pounds, he wanted to buy paint, but John Lennon convinced him to buy an electric bass guitar. In either case, the money was nothing but an opportunity to go in one creative direction or another, which was previously not as open to him.
It f*cking sucks when you put 40 hours into a video and it gets instantly demonetized. Also really stifles my creativity as I can be 20 hours into editing and then you realize the video might not be advertiser friendly. So from now on those vids are members only. I've got a video on alcohol in cinema in the works that will probably be deemed non-advertiser friendly by RUclips but I still want to make it. So I decided on this new policy.
Great video! It was about time this issue was confronted. I wrote a brief essay relating to the matter and intentionality in art. I could share it with you if you're interested. Regardless, very well done. Wish you all the best in your thriving endeavors.🙌
No sir. You do not understand. These are not the 1800s anymore. We do not starve out of pride, we have to for the very same reasons behind the Great Resignation. Have you ever been on an artistic industry? A real one? A Comic book publisher, a videogame company? Forsaking your wellbeing for the sake of production and sales? It is not a rythm you can sustain. How about we stop romaticizing productivity and discuss ways to create a healthy artistic market?
It’s honestly so sickening how people voluntarily consumer art, content, music, movies and money all day long yet the consumers feel like it’s not valuable.
i feel ashamed. i have felt so my whole life. perhaps thats what made me take up the arts to find some freedom from shame. but the shame has real world tangible implications like low wage acceptance. f*ck this shit. i want to climb out of it. ive tried through anger. doesnt help much. spirituality was good only up to a point. Hopefully will get out of this. calm and inspiration will strike.
You make a significant error in your thesis when you conflate craft with art. The two have nothing whatsoever to do with one another. But the reality is, the world is filled with far more craftsmen than it is artists, so art and craft have become, unfortunately, often interchangeable for the uninitiate. Craft exists on a hierarchy. Art does not. Craft is learned. Art is not. Craft is an action in service to a naturalist outcome - the chair for sitting, the propaganda to persuade, the satire to critique. The action of art, conversely, is in service to the manifesting of a truth, free from subjective desire. An artist can, of course, also be a craftsman, just as a butcher can also be a taxi driver. But craft and art are antithetical actions.
Making some of your old videos members only was such a shameless move. If I didn't enjoy this channel so much I would have unsubscribed without a second thought. Im really disappointed ;(
Great to hear you enjoy this channel. I don't like it either but one of the most frustrating aspects of making videos on this channel has been that the movies and subjects I want to cover are often not advertiser friendly. I make them out of love but putting in 40 hours and having a video immediately demonetized upon release is not fun. I also have some expenses making them like adobe creative cloud, music licensing etc. Making some old videos this happened to members only and having the ability to make new videos members only if they get demonetized allows me to keep some creative freedom in picking the subjects I want to make videos about. For example I have videos about alcohol in cinema, the 2019 hong kong riots (I was living there at the time) and the loneliness epidemic coming up. All videos I really want to make but they will take 100-150 hours in total to make. If they all get nuked for advertiser friendliness upon release I will make them members only. There will still be plenty of freely available videos coming up (including the three above if they don't get nuked) and I also don't mind people becoming a member, watching the videos and then immediately unsubscribing. No problem. Hope you understand. It's not about greed, more about trying to keep this channel at least somewhat sustainable. And keeping some creative freedom. Otherwise, thanks for your support in the past. Cheers, Lars
@@storytellers1 Thanks for the reply. Well I was a bit mad cause two of my three fav vides were turned members only (Wall-e, Ratatouille and beauty and the beast) I do comprehend why u did it. I might keep around, hope u keep posting vids like those. I think the little prince book and 2015 movie could be a good subject for a video. Cheers mate :)
Some interesting thoughts here, but I have two gripes: First, you seem to put much too great a focus on art as a skill. I would never rank technical skill/ability as the most important feature of an artist. Second, your statement at 9:31 suggests to me that you don't understand postmodernism. (I'd recommend the video of "The Art Assignment" on this piece to start understanding it.) This means that you're missing a huge part of what it means to be an artist today and what art even _is_. Instead you underscore the artist's ability to make us feel emotions. Combined with focus on technical ability that's "just" modernism. It's fair to value this kind of art in your life, but that's just one slice of the whole pie. All in all this makes this video even more interesting though, as I would've thought that the image of the starving artist was more easily aligned with modern art rather than postmodern (or even metamodern) art. You instead making a point of artists seeing themselves also as a company marketing a "product" would not have been a conclusion I'd expected. I'll have to think on that more.
Just came in here to share my argument that even modernist art (i.e. banana on the wall) is real art, and not an insult to other artists. It did exactly what you claim an artist needs to do, market the art and gain attention. The main disconnect is that we may share differing claims to what we believe is the point of art, or what is art trying to do?
As he said, it is an insult because it took no skill or work at all. Anyone can put a banana on a wall. It was just a mindless gimmick. While real artists work to create something appealing and connecting with the perciever. Anyone can take a dump and call it art but it's just that, a dump
The banana on the wall prevoked a lot of thought from many people, and still generates emotional reactions to this day, for example your reaction to it in this video. Why is easy-to-make art an insult? My kids aren't trying to insult Davinchi when they put doodles on the fridge. An artist who puts effort and time into creating what they want to create isn't going to cry when someone doodles a flower, or hangs and orniment or tapes something to the wall to be looked at. The only people it insults and offends are people who think they get to decide what art should be. You dont. You don't get to decide what art should be. People will make art for 1000 reasons and their art will have 1000 meanings to millions of people and you think you can stand atop it all and say "I've decided that this isnt art". Why? Because it doesn't interest you? Thats ok, it's not an insult to you, it's just not your cup of tea. Go look at something else.
Controversial take: “If you are not able to raise money from your art, you are shitty in presentation of your art or your art have no value.” Art work as any other craft, you need to make something what have value for people so they are willing to give you there money.
@@marektengler6033 art is not a craft. Art has other kinds of value than exchange value. Just like air has near zero exchange value but is invaluable to your life. The problem with your thinking is that you have internalized exchange value as "real value" and you are also guilty of being a relativist(judging art by its ability to raise money - ie relativizing art to exchange value. Would you relativize the worth of your mother to exchange value?).
@Bestmann3n, I can relativize art solely based on its "exchange value," while acknowledging that this "exchange value" can be highly subjective. "Air has no value on this planet, but on Mars, it could." "The value of my mother is zero to you, but significant to me." When I say, "art-of my hypothetical strawmen-has no value," I mean that his art holds no value in the eyes of the people to whom he presents it (or at least its value is not high enough for them to be willing to pay for it). However, this doesn't imply that it holds no value for him. It's perfectly acceptable to create art solely for oneself; just don't be upset if others aren't willing to pay for it.
Become a Leader in Your Creative Field. Check out Yorkville University's Bachelor of the Creative Arts: Yorkvilleu.ca/BCA-oncampus/Storytellers
Hey, I’m sorry to ask. What happened to your great The Dark Knight Rises video essay? I loved it.
@@brucecrawford_17 It got demonetized years ago. So recently I made it members only.
@@storytellers1Oh okay. I understand. I will become a member then. It's a great video. Thank you for telling me.
Hey how can I become a channel member in order to watch the dark knight part 3 vid
Hey @storytellers1, sorry to learn about the videos getting demonetised. But "How an artist turns pro?" and the Shutter Island video are two of my most favourite videos not only on your channel but on the entire RUclips. I have been feeling a bit low these days so I decided to watch 'How an artist turns pro', but I was pretty annoyed that you put it behind a paywall.
The video is such a masterpiece that the membership amount is a steal of a deal.
Also therapy is way more expensive than this. Thanks for making videos!
Do you think Van Gogh would have a RUclips channel. "Hey guys, sorry about my gross ear haha... anyway this video is sponsored by Better help"
If he wants a chance of being anything in the present, yes
As a writer, I don’t choose to starve. I don’t know of very many sane people who would. It’s simply that I would rather focus on doing what I love than be a corporate slave. Quite often, struggling financially is the price one pays. The reason why the best artists struggle with money is because they focus on pleasing themselves instead of the market. Their work only appeals to niche markets. However, it can be very difficult for an artist to break through all of the noise and standout to the audience that might finance them. That is the plight of the artist.
Honestly i think the patron youtuber is the best version of this. They can make widespread videos that are seen by the small crowd that agrees with them. In there they get funding by a lot of middle class people and even 1 or 2 whales. So it works nicely. Also when i said widespread i did not mean make a video about why the curtains are red and get 8 million views in a week. By widespread i mean you do not have to go to a museum to see them but rather have access to youtube and either accidently find them because your interesting in the topic or the algorithm actually does its job. So it makes it a lot easier.
@@thewhitewolf58 As a RUclipsr myself, that’s assuming the algorithm promotes your videos. Not everyone is so lucky.
Art is my therapy it keeps me alive in its own right :)
I love the part where you say (and I'm paraphrazing) that "true artists might miss a few notes but you can feel that they are putting their hearts and souls into it". Impeccable statement. Subscribed!
MOST artist come from the middle class because those people have the time and money to create and become better. Also, sometimes if you want to succeed it's about who you know
needs to be mentioned
This. I have never seen a single artist who came from an impoverished family.
Ireland passed a law last year allowing universal basic income for artists. So, yeah....being an artist doesn't mean having to starve in the near future.
Passed? What does that mean? Do you know anyone benefitting from this UBI?
@@funkymunkyOf the many bad things Irish politicians are doing, this is only one of the few good ones. Irish artists are getting €325 per week unconditionally. I'm not sure how it works entirely, but only certified artists could receive them so that no one else could pretend to be artist and just receive free benefits. I doubt you'd get UBI if you're already a rich Irish celebrity like Cillian Murphy or Daniel Day Lewis though.
@@impalabeeper Thanks for clarifying! To be eligible as an artist, do you need a business in your name? How does the Irish government go about certifying artists and verifying eligibility? Thanks, again, for sharing: this is music to my ears, even though I don't live in Ireland!
It’s a pilot scheme of universal basic income of €325 a week which is not worth a whole based on the rent costs and living costs in Ireland. Over 9000 artists applied for the scheme and only 2000 got selected. It was a complete random selection but one of the qualifying factors was your income and living situation. While it’s better than nothing, they still have a long way to go in supporting the arts in Ireland. They seem more than happy to destroy art spaces for hotels in Dublin City Centre.
@@EamonnKehoeProductio Sounds achingly familiar. Purely symbolic, then?
Holy shit, was this a well-placed video (in my own personal timeline). Feels synchronistic. Thanks for what you do, man.
Agreed. Same here.
Thanks for the book recommendations! I'm more of a crafter than an artist, but I fully agree that you shouldn't starve to show your creativity or work a stressful lifeless job for the sake of money. I'm more hobby centric now than I was when I willing to overwork myself for the sake of profit.
the way van Gogh worked isn't a career choice, he had a mental illness... otherwise he could've worked at his brother's art gallery, while producing art at the same time. This was what Trollope did, a couple of hours of writing in the morning, then went to work at the post office. Still managed to do all the writing he could ever do, and became one of the most prolific writer... this is in Pressfield's book too, I think
I don't think the Starving Artist (tm) archetype is romanticized, it's more just the reality that art almost never makes enough money for you to live on, and so critically acclaimed artists are usually poor. Speaking of writing specifically, I sold a novel for a lot of money, and the publication process from it being sold to it coming out was almost two years. During that time I was paid in four instalments, taxed on both, in addition to the money my agent got. My publishers wouldn't buy another book until they found out how many copies the current book sold, and by the time my book came out, living expenses had whittled away that advance and I had the choice between get a job or be a starving artist.
This video ignores a very crucial fact of a true artist; their anti-authoritarian, anti-statusquo mentality. It takes an enormous effort and time in between creating art to gather the mindset that produces great works of art. It's not about the grind of the craft, many aspiring artists today have focused so much on craft that they have totally forgotten a core tenet of what artistry is about; to have something to say, something to express, something to form out of the chaos of our reality. Some artists can be unproductive over the course of a decade before creating a great work of art because sometimes it takes that amount of time to not only find inspiration, but also to form ideas and visions for that work of art. The distractions of this modern market-driven economy that is grinding people into burnout just through its basic core mechanics is killing true artistry because there's never any time to criticize this status quo, to be antiauthoritarian against the powers that drive society. This rejection of the norms is fundamental to true art because something that aligns with the status quo just becomes content, not art.
We celebrate artists because they challenged common thought, because they triggered new perspectives. It's not just about producing emotions. There are tons of sentimental movies that play the heartstrings but are fundamentally empty. Producing emotions can be done through just empathic manipulation, but actual emotions through a great work of art is a total assault on the senses and emotions on a far deeper level than any of the shallow bullshit that hacks produce. Today there are so many, especially young people, who's been mislead into believing that content and art is one and the same. They do not understand what art truly is.
And it's this that becomes a problem when analyzing the struggling artist. They're not poor or struggling because they cannot balance selling their art with creating art, they are poor and struggling because the dedication itself requires them to reject the norms in order to find the sublime. It is essential for actually producing great works of art. The only reason some manage to combine success and art is because their art sold itself, it was presented at the right time in the right place and took off.
We shouldn't demand artists to be good at business. What should be the norm is to let artists create and struggle in their analysis of existence and reality and stop romanticizing productivity of content. Artists require a salesperson and marketing people, those are the ones who's responsible for bringing art into the view of the public, those are the ones who should be responsible for pushing art into good business.
There has to be a stop to the constant demand on artists to sell themselves. It hurts the art itself and is only pushed for by people who have never created anything of value themselves. It's not a privilege to be able to work undisturbed as an artist, it's vital for the artist to be left alone in order to create something of actual value. If people actually cared about art at all, that's what's required; leave them alone to create and then if you like it, help sell their art.
And that's what should be the norm. We need more people who are good at selling and marketing artist's work. Look at the channel "Blind Dweller" for example. He has a section that focuses on showing unknown artists work and does so in as much detail and analysis as he does with the well known artists he usually talks about. That's the kind of help artists need and if people actually and truly care about art and not just posing as liking art for some status reason; then spread the unknown artists work that you like, into the public and view of an audience.
It's remarkable how the individualistic neoliberal and capitalist mindset has entangled young people into being alone. Everyone needs to help each other out and stop believing in this productivity bullshit that's infested the world of art. Business people and marketers should handle the sales and business, NOT artists.
Well formulated comment. While I think there is room for different variances of the balance (or lack there of) between making art and selling, I agree wholly that the quality of making work, and spirit-lifting soul-fulfilling work at that, isn't necessarily tied to making profit (unless that's part of the work). I would like to pose that it's possible for artists to toe the line of making profit, for even under a communist system there is still the incentive to produce profit, and reserve energy and time for the that is the art practice that functions as a mode of the artists existence and methods of interacting with the world, the universe.
This is a bit of a romantic outlook because it's not possible. Like not even remotely possible unless only a handful of people ever achieve the title of "artist". I also think it's a misreading of art history when you consider the social and business savvy artists have always had to have to make it (outside of the lucky few that aquire a rich patron). Artists have always hid deeper meanings in crowd-pleasing content, worked projects they didn't want to work to make ends meat, etc etc. You could even argue that the toil associated with the pursuit of making it as an artist is THE road to achieving the "sublime".
I agree that in a perfect world we would simply support artists so they could pursue the sublime full time, but we don't live in a perfect world. And even if we did I would not at all be surprised to find that the same number of people end up finding the sublime with or without the help anyway.
Bukowski worked at the post office while building his body of work, Shakespeare wrote crowd-pleasers while simultaneously reinventing the concept of being a human and the English language, The birth of Venus was commissioned by a dude who wanted to jerk off on his back, and I edit videos for RUclipsrs and corporate brands while working toward the mastery of my own medium. And I feel I'm in good company by doing so.
The artists who make it are hustlers and always have been.
You don't do art for money. You do it because you have to. Because it is screaming to come out of you. Because it brings you joy to create it. If you make money from it awesome! Even better!
this is too real
nono, sometimes you do it for money because you have to feed yourself
It takes long hours to create significant works of art. How can it even be accomplished on top of a day job these days? Everyplace that pays the rent requires overtime and every place that doesn't necessitates a second job.
Commercial art is trash. Saying the artist should just draw for hire is like saying a young woman should give up on love and find a sugar daddy. Ridiculous.
You're right, I totally agree, an artist is doomed to be steamrolled by life, you can't just draw whatever you want and earn money, if you want do draw for hire, you'd have to whore yourself out, in my ten years of drawing, I've done a few comissions, two or three of those for money, the rest for free, usually it's a portrait, a pencil copy of a photo, it's weird, but people apparently like that, I felt like a human printer with hands. People have offered a lot of money for drawing NSFW, or really weird fetish pictures, I declined those. I don't want to write examples of what people asked, but it's just gross. I'd rather not do that.
so long as we live under capitalism and can only turn art into commodities in hopes to earn a living, or having ourselves and our ability to continue making art reliant on the patronage of the rich, there will always be starving artists.
I don’t understand why Vincent Van Gogh’s life is presented so truncated. Why it is seldom explained that before he was a master artist, he was a master art salesman in a number of major European cities. He was absolutely aware of what was selling at the time. And he knew what would be considered breaking the rules of the day, as a result of being a master art salesman…
Also, why is his spiritual life is not spoken of. The history of his relationship with Christianity. How organized religion thwarted this pursuit of spirituality…
The media sells incomplete stories so people can feel like they can do the same
A lot of conventions and rules were yet to be dismantled prior to Van Gogh’s work being created. Even most impressionists were fairly beholden to the rules of light and nature. His work would probably have an easier chance selling maybe 50-60 years later. Historical context is crucial here. Just saying he was an awkward mentally ill person is really reductive
I am a (Dutch) artist who travels the world for work in a pretty big band. In many ways I am a part of a project that in many ways has reached the top of the game, however I still struggle a lot financially and very much live the same artist life as most struggling artists. One could indeed wonder, what makes a successful artist? is it when you have reached a monetary treshold where you make the same as you would in another successful career, or does success mean the world, big studios etc etc has finally noticed your art?
Mmm while success is a thing on the plate we're discussing, id respectfully point out that you're missing the point on this, since the video is about to starve or not to starve in your artistic career. If you're not starving, well congrats, from a starving musician. If You don't feel successful in the world you're part off while you're NOT starving, then yeah, it's a different matter, for another vid maybe. U see, starvation it's a delicate matter, wich success can (wether it comes the way we like or not) put an end to. Being successful and feeling successful are two different matters, one objectively impactful and life changing, and the other subjectively worth the time to reflect upon in order to pursue the life that makes You happy, sacrifices included, but nevertheless a joy if it feels right for ya. Starvation is on the objective side of the discussion, but yeah, there s some subjective outlook for the mindset of a starving artist wich have a role in the financial struggle. Point is, You can FEEL successful even starving, or going unnoticed, but thats not the issue, we're talking about starving, not succeeding. All the best. if you're where You are, then some compromise or sacrifice it took from You to be there, thats admirable to me.
I'm a published writer but I am still a starving artist who suffers from debilitating anxiety attacks. My publisher published me not even reading my goddamned book and changed the title because he thought the title sounded like the name of a medicine he took. The title was The @taraxy and changed it to Last Eden. What more trite and dull title this could be? I wanted a title that might stir the intellectual imagination of the reader daring to challenge it. But no, they thought they knew better and now they are jobless as I am right now because they swindled the money of the publishing house that wasn't even theirs. So, the only reason why I was published was by the recommendation of a teacher that I had who directed a writing workshop where I presented my novels. If not, I wouldn't have been published. By the way, my native language is not English but Spanish and I've been trying to be published in an English language publishing house after the experience that I got from publishing science fiction in Spanish. The Spanish language writers deride science fiction because they deemed too childish, but what I write is as serious as 1984 and Brave New World. But after all this little rant of mine is that I didn't choose to be a starving artist and a suffering artist but just it happens that I am.
I like the message, but it is ignorant. The market for art and creative endeavours is very small (mass consumption like generic netflix series doesn't equate to art: that's like comparing fast food to fine dining). Similar to sports, not everyone can be a professional; not for a lack of trying, but because competition is so fierce. The reason artists often refuse the market is because commercial interest often contradict artistic interests. Look at the music industry. Most creatives are not shying from making money because they are scared of rejection - not sure where this assumption even came from.
The worth of my art is the worth i give it, and they're priceless to me. Idc if anyone sees it less, only that i they're mine to enjoy and everyone's missing out is my personal humor.
No more excuses. No more starving or hurting yourself. Make your art but don't hurt yourself as a result.
Excellent video!
Thank you for sharing it with us.
I have a suggestion for improvement. It would enhance the viewer's experience if you could include references to your films within the video itself. This way, viewers would have a clearer understanding of the context and could appreciate your work even more.
Best regards,
Never heard of the one for me one for them format. Think that is the most adult way of doing it i have ever seen.
Incredible Video!!!
That is quite sad, Van Gogh is an amazing artist, one of the greatest painters, yet his life is so tragic. Many artists face that as well, not being able to be successful, this causes depression, artblock and mental problems. As an artist myself I struggled a lot of time, trying and failing to be successful, eventually after many failures to find a fan base I decided to stop trying. This is now just a hobby for me and means to express myself. I'm no Van Gogh, but I certainly feel like him, when your art is being either ignored or hated, if I do offer to draw for money, nobody asks, these days I just do it for free and yet people don't care, so I've come to realization that I should stop trying to please people, now I'm just drawing for myself and friends or family. I don't know how other artists survive on commissions alone, patreons and etc, it's something that will always baffle me. You either need to be aware of trends or draw NSFW. I've been drawing for at least 10 years and during that time I think I've earned no more than 50 dollars, which is funny. I don't starve, I work at a car factory, and draw in the free time. My total fanbase is like 10 people, most of whom are family and friends, haha. Some people asks me, if I'm drawing so good, why am I not successful, "why can't you just sell? Earn money by drawing commissions". Literally nobody is interested in that, and I understand completely. I'd draw it for free anyways, because I don't see much value in my own drawings, they have meaning to me, but not a financial one
Feel as though some divine intervention had recommended this video to me. That it wasn't the algorithm or anything along those lines, But I am going through a moment of doubt in a moment of strife in my art. I appreciate your video thank you
We romanticise the Starving artist because making money requires compromise, it’s always an exchange. Money always comes from someone and you can’t ignore them if you want it to exchange hands.
To be an exceptional artist you have to be able to risk not being understood or appreciated, to not compromise your vision but explore and develope it, even at the risk it affects your livelihood.
The Starving artist is the symbolic pinnacle of pure and uncompromising creative self expression and exploration.
Something many creatives yearn for.
it is a lie
@@phangkuanhoong7967why?
no it is not@@phangkuanhoong7967
@@phangkuanhoong7967 no it's not
I would like to know some more about Vincent brother Widow. Can somone give me a hint were to find something about her?
There are several books on Johanna van Gogh - just search her, or 'Theo van Gogh's widow' (she was Vincent's sister-in-law). Hope it helps. :)
A lot of great film directors came from wealth: Bergman, French New Wave directors, Christopher Nolan, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Terrence Malick, Sophia Coppola, Orson Welles
3:40 I don't think Van Gogh is alive
such an engaging sponsor video made so well ❤
This is a beautiful video. Thank you
What an amazing video. Good work dude!
No artist in his/er right mind would ever dare dream of wanting to make art while starving. I'm more willing to accept the stereotype of artists constructing their masterpieces in stages from gradual intoxication by booze or episodes of getting high while working a boring part-time job that barely pays the bills rather than making art while being malnourished in a slum.
For one thing, all art requires more than just imagination and talent, even genius. It requires sources of support, which mustn't be confined to friends and family but from others out there who are willing to understand that the artist is working within certain limitations yet aspires to escape the mundanity and mediocrity existing within the rigid parameters of social conventions. Furthermore, the artist should understand beforehand that whatever is created must not solely fulfill his/er sole visions, but should seek to transcend certain limits and inspire others to do something that goes beyond what has been either proven or accepted as possible, regardless of whether the art produced appeals to certain sensitivities and/or tastes.
Why did you make How To Be Creative: How an Artist Turns Pro members only video?
I imagine it's because they always feel suppressed by a lack of resources.
They used to need patrons, so they had to paint pictures of the fat wives of their patrons.
They couldn't paint what they wanted to paint.
So, when they score a windfall, they would rush out to buy paint and take a cab to the beach.
When Stu Sutcliff won an award of some hundreds of pounds, he wanted to buy paint, but John Lennon convinced him to buy an electric bass guitar. In either case, the money was nothing but an opportunity to go in one creative direction or another, which was previously not as open to him.
What is the film @ 0:33?
Spike Jonze with a buzzcut?
I needed this. Thank you.
wooow what a video ;xx wow
Man you gotta do a video on the movie hostiles with Christian Bale .
Why are some of your old videos members only?
It f*cking sucks when you put 40 hours into a video and it gets instantly demonetized. Also really stifles my creativity as I can be 20 hours into editing and then you realize the video might not be advertiser friendly. So from now on those vids are members only.
I've got a video on alcohol in cinema in the works that will probably be deemed non-advertiser friendly by RUclips but I still want to make it. So I decided on this new policy.
Great video! It was about time this issue was confronted. I wrote a brief essay relating to the matter and intentionality in art. I could share it with you if you're interested. Regardless, very well done. Wish you all the best in your thriving endeavors.🙌
hello, im an art student and very interested in your essay! any chance you could share?
One of my fav video from your channel is now only memebers, what happened? I'm talking about how artist turns pro one
Stable Diffusion doesn't starve, that is true
No sir. You do not understand. These are not the 1800s anymore. We do not starve out of pride, we have to for the very same reasons behind the Great Resignation. Have you ever been on an artistic industry? A real one? A Comic book publisher, a videogame company? Forsaking your wellbeing for the sake of production and sales? It is not a rythm you can sustain. How about we stop romaticizing productivity and discuss ways to create a healthy artistic market?
Thank you for saying this...
Literally
It’s honestly so sickening how people voluntarily consumer art, content, music, movies and money all day long yet the consumers feel like it’s not valuable.
i feel ashamed. i have felt so my whole life. perhaps thats what made me take up the arts to find some freedom from shame. but the shame has real world tangible implications like low wage acceptance. f*ck this shit. i want to climb out of it. ive tried through anger. doesnt help much. spirituality was good only up to a point. Hopefully will get out of this. calm and inspiration will strike.
Currently at Yorkville... Please, save yourselves. Great video nonetheless.
What is that Bryan Cranston Movie?
Trumbo I guess
You make a significant error in your thesis when you conflate craft with art. The two have nothing whatsoever to do with one another.
But the reality is, the world is filled with far more craftsmen than it is artists, so art and craft have become, unfortunately, often interchangeable for the uninitiate.
Craft exists on a hierarchy. Art does not. Craft is learned. Art is not. Craft is an action in service to a naturalist outcome - the chair for sitting, the propaganda to persuade, the satire to critique. The action of art, conversely, is in service to the manifesting of a truth, free from subjective desire.
An artist can, of course, also be a craftsman, just as a butcher can also be a taxi driver. But craft and art are antithetical actions.
I was somewhat with you until "free from subjective desire". What do you mean by that?
@@Bestmann3n It means that the artist has no reason for manifesting the art other than to see it made manifest.
Making some of your old videos members only was such a shameless move. If I didn't enjoy this channel so much I would have unsubscribed without a second thought. Im really disappointed ;(
Great to hear you enjoy this channel. I don't like it either but one of the most frustrating aspects of making videos on this channel has been that the movies and subjects I want to cover are often not advertiser friendly. I make them out of love but putting in 40 hours and having a video immediately demonetized upon release is not fun. I also have some expenses making them like adobe creative cloud, music licensing etc.
Making some old videos this happened to members only and having the ability to make new videos members only if they get demonetized allows me to keep some creative freedom in picking the subjects I want to make videos about.
For example I have videos about alcohol in cinema, the 2019 hong kong riots (I was living there at the time) and the loneliness epidemic coming up.
All videos I really want to make but they will take 100-150 hours in total to make. If they all get nuked for advertiser friendliness upon release I will make them members only.
There will still be plenty of freely available videos coming up (including the three above if they don't get nuked) and I also don't mind people becoming a member, watching the videos and then immediately unsubscribing. No problem.
Hope you understand. It's not about greed, more about trying to keep this channel at least somewhat sustainable. And keeping some creative freedom.
Otherwise, thanks for your support in the past. Cheers, Lars
@@storytellers1 Thanks for the reply. Well I was a bit mad cause two of my three fav vides were turned members only (Wall-e, Ratatouille and beauty and the beast) I do comprehend why u did it. I might keep around, hope u keep posting vids like those. I think the little prince book and 2015 movie could be a good subject for a video. Cheers mate :)
Some interesting thoughts here, but I have two gripes: First, you seem to put much too great a focus on art as a skill. I would never rank technical skill/ability as the most important feature of an artist. Second, your statement at 9:31 suggests to me that you don't understand postmodernism. (I'd recommend the video of "The Art Assignment" on this piece to start understanding it.) This means that you're missing a huge part of what it means to be an artist today and what art even _is_. Instead you underscore the artist's ability to make us feel emotions. Combined with focus on technical ability that's "just" modernism.
It's fair to value this kind of art in your life, but that's just one slice of the whole pie. All in all this makes this video even more interesting though, as I would've thought that the image of the starving artist was more easily aligned with modern art rather than postmodern (or even metamodern) art. You instead making a point of artists seeing themselves also as a company marketing a "product" would not have been a conclusion I'd expected. I'll have to think on that more.
Just came in here to share my argument that even modernist art (i.e. banana on the wall) is real art, and not an insult to other artists. It did exactly what you claim an artist needs to do, market the art and gain attention. The main disconnect is that we may share differing claims to what we believe is the point of art, or what is art trying to do?
As he said, it is an insult because it took no skill or work at all. Anyone can put a banana on a wall. It was just a mindless gimmick. While real artists work to create something appealing and connecting with the perciever. Anyone can take a dump and call it art but it's just that, a dump
I love these Hitler paintings.
It's funny that you talk about artists and soul when is a "job" as full of psicopaths as politicians are. 😂
Oooo, you just turned 30. Come back in ten or twenty years once you’ve actually learned something.
Well no offense but people under 30 have access to information that took you fifty years to get...retire early we'll replace you in 5 years.
Very cringe and pretencious.
How about creating a constructive critique instead of bringing people down with broad strokes.
Uh, Van Gogh...
The banana on the wall prevoked a lot of thought from many people, and still generates emotional reactions to this day, for example your reaction to it in this video.
Why is easy-to-make art an insult? My kids aren't trying to insult Davinchi when they put doodles on the fridge. An artist who puts effort and time into creating what they want to create isn't going to cry when someone doodles a flower, or hangs and orniment or tapes something to the wall to be looked at. The only people it insults and offends are people who think they get to decide what art should be. You dont. You don't get to decide what art should be. People will make art for 1000 reasons and their art will have 1000 meanings to millions of people and you think you can stand atop it all and say "I've decided that this isnt art". Why? Because it doesn't interest you? Thats ok, it's not an insult to you, it's just not your cup of tea. Go look at something else.
Controversial take: “If you are not able to raise money from your art, you are shitty in presentation of your art or your art have no value.” Art work as any other craft, you need to make something what have value for people so they are willing to give you there money.
that's not controversial. it's just stupid.
@@Bestmann3n I am waiting for your argument...
@@marektengler6033 art is not a craft.
Art has other kinds of value than exchange value. Just like air has near zero exchange value but is invaluable to your life.
The problem with your thinking is that you have internalized exchange value as "real value" and you are also guilty of being a relativist(judging art by its ability to raise money - ie relativizing art to exchange value. Would you relativize the worth of your mother to exchange value?).
@Bestmann3n, I can relativize art solely based on its "exchange value," while acknowledging that this "exchange value" can be highly subjective. "Air has no value on this planet, but on Mars, it could." "The value of my mother is zero to you, but significant to me."
When I say, "art-of my hypothetical strawmen-has no value," I mean that his art holds no value in the eyes of the people to whom he presents it (or at least its value is not high enough for them to be willing to pay for it).
However, this doesn't imply that it holds no value for him. It's perfectly acceptable to create art solely for oneself; just don't be upset if others aren't willing to pay for it.
Some people are bad salesmen 🤷
Cope.
what do you even mean