Discouragement and how to fight it

It can be a daily struggle to have to/want to/be able to make a living as a freelance artist. Not only do you have to find time and peace to create your works, and experiment left and right knowing that much of that work has no commercial justification and that you are therefore not productive in the traditional sense either.

When you're done—or hopefully you'll never be done—and at long last have succeeded in creating something that you can see others derive pleasure from or value, you can start over and try to create so much awareness that the improbable happens, and a potential buyer appears out of nowhere.

So stand strong. Grit your teeth and continue making your art. Mobilize all the determination you can and keep going even when it looks completely hopeless and you don't feel like you're getting anywhere.

Let's just say that there are easier and safer ways for you to earn your money.

This is not about these easy roads, though . . . . If you didn't have the fire and this full blown crazy urge to create in you, in all probability you would have chosen a different career path long ago.

“But you make a living from it?” I asked Ole Jauch a few years ago, when he resided in the neighborhood. “Or die with it;” he smiled back. An answer I did not yet fully understand the depth of at the time.

Truth be told, it is easy to get discouraged when you realize how indifferent the rest of the world is to your art, and how much effort it takes to scrape together just a minimum wage at the end of each month.

Still. With grit, determination and stubborn, bloody-mindedness, you keep continuing the work of creating and developing your art (or whatever personal project you're tinkering with). You commit to working professionally and simply make it until you make it.

Of course you do. Because you have no other options.

(Okay; you might have other options, but you have no better options).

And what is more important: you have the opportunity and you have the ability.

Then maybe you're pushing the finances and maybe you'll never get to drive the big, expensive car. But if you were to drive that (big, expensive car) to work every morning knowing that you could not manage your time yourself, wouldn't you really rather do without?

So stand strong. Grit your teeth and continue making your art. Mobilize all the determination you can and keep going even when it looks completely hopeless and you don't feel like you're getting anywhere.

Let me give you an encouraging pat on the back and assure you that the openings will invariably appear. The alpha and omega is that you affirm yourself in your own artistic narrative and persistently keep creating.

Although your steps may feel tiny and some days you actually move backwards, you will still have moved surprisingly far when in a year or two you take stock and look back. Of course when you zoom in on a route, it can be close to impossible to see if you are moving in the right direction. Seen from a helicopter perspective, however, or seen in hindsight you will often be pleasantly surprised.

One thing is for sure: if you give up tomorrow, you will get nowhere.

Better to adapt and invent, tweak and innovate; to be willing to persist and to learn. You call yourself an artist for a reason. As Storm P said: Art is everything you can't do. If you could, it wouldn't be an art.