the way of the artist-entrepreneur
a mindset that changed everything in how I approach art + business.
I recently figured out a process flow / diagram / solution to an existential puzzle I’ve literally trying to solve for YEARS.
the puzzle/question is:
how do you make money
as a creative/artist
in the world?
not like a little money as a tiny side income; not even just “enough money to live off of as a single young person” (my aim for many years) — but rather, money that is substantial enough to raise a family, buy a house, invest, become a philanthropist, flow back into the world).
this question is like a puzzle with a million different (agonizing) pieces (one of which is being a moody artist with work overwhelm)
up until this point, I tried to solve this question by breaking it down into two sub-questions:
how do you make money with your art?
how do you start a business as an artist/creative?
I’ll get to that. first, here’s what I’ll cover in this post:
table of contents
why these two questions didn’t work for me
the journey and what got me here
the mindset for making money
the philosophy of an artist-entrepreneur
why be an artist-entrepreneur (and how)
art & business as sacred channels
ongoing notes
(1)
why these two questions
didn’t work for me
I spent years looking for the answer to these two questions. only now do I realize — they are the wrong questions. or rather, they are questions that lead to far more important questions.
let me explain.
art as commodity
at the very beginning, I thought the answer to the puzzle of art & money was: #1, market/sell your art by commoditizing it — an answer that I resisted, because when I tried it — (I sold paintings, pottery, beautiful handmade things, briefly had an etsy shop, etc) — it just made me super tired, and sucked the joy away from creation. it made the entire creative act filled with pressure to sell.
artist as creative-service-provider
then, I thought: answer to #2, use my creative skills to provide services (as a web designer, illustrator, animator, etc). but this also didn’t quite work, because there was a part of me (the artist child) which resented that I had to do service-based work, in order to feed my art.
as a result, whatever creative services I provided — illustration, website design, graphic design — made me feel drained. I’d pour ALL of my energy into my client work, such that I felt like I had no creative juice left for my own creative work. on top of that, I felt like I always undercharged and overdelivered (but that’s another story).
very recently, I had a huge realization:
energetically, I blocked my business from growing. subconsciously, I didn’t want clients, because I believed that clients took away my freedom.
obviously, this push/pull “I hate needing you” relationship with money and business made me feel stuck, and blocked whenever I tried to force myself to do “business” things.
um, doesn’t this feel like a relationship with MEN?!?! the funny thing is that after years of dating men who made me feel unseen (but who I thought I needed) — I’m finally in a relationship with a man who makes me feel supported, cherished — everything I’m feeling towards money/work/business. universe has a sense of poetryyy!
recently, I found a third way.
and it started with me investigating and healing my relationship to money.
recently, I realized that these two questions above are the wrong questions to ask. those two questions forced me to energetically compartmentalize ART + BUSINESS.
let me back up, and tell you how I got here.
[side tangent: I’ll add that I never even tried to go down the route of applying for residencies/grants/funding — in order to make art. even with all its very valid benefits, to me it felt like a form of financial dependency / permission-slip asking… that was a bottleneck / imposed external structure on my art… which I’m kind of allergic to]
(2)
the journey & what got me here
looking back, my stages of evolution looked like this:
2015: a very angsty creative person — with a day job
2017: an angsty creative person with no job — and side hustles
2019: angsty artist — with side hustles (here is 2019 in lessons)
2022: artist with a business (my angst was chilling out)
mid-2023: artist-entrepreneur (as I’m writing this)
I could share the existential struggles of how I shifted (100% internally) from creative person to artist, or from hustle to business, or how I chilled out my angst — but this is a different topic.
today, the topic is:
how I went from
"artist with a business"
to artist-entrepreneur
hint: this is also 100% internal; or at least it begins that way.
I will say: I spent a good many years (mostly while traveling, during the pandemic) letting myself just BE an artist — making just enough money to live and feed myself; but not caring about money. that phase was amazing — soulful, rich, deeply, spiritually transformative. it was like a self-created creative monastery.
but, this year, I’ve emerged from my artistic hermitude to claim a different phase — that of the artist-entrepreneur.
(3)
the mindset for making money
in my own struggles, I realized that the ultimate solution is not what you have to DO to sell your work as an artist. because when I’m forcing myself to DO things that I don’t want to do (or my subconscious is resisting/desperately sabotaging) — guess what, I won’t do them.
instead, it starts somewhere much more fundamental. something that all the money books I’ve ever read say about money. it starts as a mindset, because your mindset is like the lens through which you see the world, it affects ALL the energy you put out, and thus, receive.
to make money as an artist, it’s not about what you DO, it’s about who you have to BECOME.
so, let me ask some questions.
does your business only exist in order to support your art?
do you approach business with an energy of obligation — rather than an energy of joy & inspiration?
do you feel (inner) resistance against business, because it takes your time away from art?
those were all true for me.
my resistance around business blocked my flow — both creative flow and money flow — because I saw business as a compromise of my artist desires. I wanted to be an artist, but I had to make money to live in this world, and I didn’t want to “sell” my art.
so, my solution emerged very clearly:
in order to get myself
to be at all interested
in “business,”
I had to recouncile
the cognitive dissonance
between business & art.
I originally wrote: “good at business,” but I don’t even mean good. I mean, INTERESTED! I was uninterested in business before this point — except maybe from a place of obligation/scarcity/fear/money worry. and to get to “interested” and maybe “good”— I had to rewire my beliefs around money and business — in relation to my art.
so, what did I do?
I decided to approach business with the same creative energy, juice, inspiration, excitement, spiritual alignment, all-consuming passion, lightness, depth — as I approach making art.
I decided to evolve beyond an “artist with a (side dish but actually main dish in terms of money-giving) business”
I decided that the ONLY way I would show up 100% to my business — as an artist — is to integrate my artist self with my business self, 100%.
in other words, I commited to be an artist-entrepreneur.
artist / entrepreneur.
(4)
the philosophy of
an artist-entrepreneur
maybe you’re saying to yourself:
wait, I’m still confused
what’s the difference between
“artist with a business” and “artist-entrepreneur?”
for me, an artist with a business does the business just for money. the business supports the art, like an adult supports a child, financially. but, if the artist had infinite money, than the business probably wouldn’t need to exist. the business is mostly functional, rather than a part of the artist’s heart and soul. the contrast of energy between the two — feels clear.
for an artist-entrepreneur,
art & business are fully integrated.
they are ying/yang of one soul.
BTW: “artist-entrepreneur” is a term I made up for myself, because it felt right. I’m an artist. I love entrepreneurship. not in the masculine-tech-silicon-valley-corporate way, not in the small business, I-have-an-art-shop way (even though I did / do / will).
I love entrepreneurship as an inspired creative process — of creating the flow of money and value. I love entrepreneurship because I realized:
making money & making art
are the same creative processes.
(actually, money just is a BYPRODUCT of that process; not even the main focus. the main focus is value. more on this later)
a process flow / system - which I go way more in-depth with in a later post.
art, like business, is an ongoing process — a way of seeing the world, channeling creative energy and value into that world.
(5)
why be an artist-entrepreneur
( and the energy of how)
I commit to being an artist-entrepreneur (which, really, is just a term I made up to describe a mindset) — because:
ALIGNMENT — I desire to make money in a way that is in deep alignment with my artist ethos, energy, and values — using my skills, talents, dreams. I want money to become a conduit for my creativity and gifts, a form of expression — rather than “a necessary thing.” I want my creativity to be a deluge, and for that same creative deluge to nourish my life, in return. I want to build wealth that is materially, spiritually, emotionally, creatively sustaining — and sustainable.
EMPOWERMENT — I want to do it without waiting for permission from anyone — from the traditional crown-bestowers of artistic recognition or success (awards, agents, book deals, art galleries, grants) or the contemporary measuring stick of success — large social media followings. I want to do it my way, on my own terms.
WEALTH — I want to build true wealth as an artist — the kind of wealth that you can buy multiple houses (and islands) with; not just little income streams that was just enough to support my life. I believe that artists can be rich, too.
~
[very important side tangent: having public recognition, exposure, or approval as an artist is a very, very, very different from making money.
one gives you a brief cheer of hooray from the world, and a dose of respite from imposter syndrome (“am I real [artist/writer/whatever] if I’ve never [published a book/have work featured in a gallery/don’t have an agent/get teaching gigs at universities?” — which is in itself, an inexhaustible impossible metric) — and the other is about creating real material resources, aka, money, and using it to do good things for yourself/your family/the world. personally, I’d choose money over validation/fame/approval, anyday.]
(6)
art & business as channels
for creative energy to flow
at the risk of repeating myself — this is REALLY important! — I’m reiterating this as the simple insight that changed everything for me. both making money and making art is like learning how to use creative energy — to GIVE to the world.
both business + art takes the force of creative energy: gathers it, holds it, digests it, channels it, and flows it with generosity. the ripples of that giving will come back to you — in one way or the other.
in other words:
ART — when you serve people with your art, the effects (tears, wonder, gratitude, inspiration, deep feelings, existential life changes) are usually not measurable (except in the brute language of social media likes). and that’s a beautiful thing, because the spirit of life itself is NOT quantifiable, as much as our culture tries to tell us otherwise.
BUSINESS — when you serve people with your business; when you channel your creative energy and give to them, with generosity — in whatever form or problem you’re trying to solve for them, they will buy your offering. this is your immediate, tangible feedback.
MONEY is just a
material byproduct of
your extraordinary giving.
(7)
next step / ongoing notes
shortly after writing this post, I came across this question — that struck me like a bolt of lightening. how obvious and simple, but so, so, so clarifying. I explore this in more detail in this post.
this, my friends, is the correct question to ask yourself.
this is a question that proposes you show up to the world as your whole self. you make art. you make money. your business can hold your art, and your art can hold your business; providing the creative source energy for your business.
and you know what? I propose that embracing the role of artist-entrepreneur will expand you as an artist. it will help your art be a portal through which you can deeply serve the world. it will help make your lonely work feel a little less lonely, but on fire — with purpose and commitment.
not only am I learning to see business as my most supportive partner — in sharing my creative gifts, but I’m learning to see art as my greatest power and partner in business — rather than a delicate child I have to feed.
I believe that art is not a luxury. art is not just nice aesthetics that you buy to make rooms look less depressing. it is not home decor. it is not the third dessert. it is the main course — that creative source which feeds our lives. art is direct access to truth and beauty — a way of seeing that makes life worth living in this difficult, complicated world.
we can create more beauty, truth, hope, good in this world.
we do it through making more art, and through building meaningful, soulful, nourishing businesses, and through doing both — at the same time.🌑
thank you for reading. I write a Thursday email called guide.notes where I share recent posts, and nerd out on the creative process of being an artist entrepreneur.