Art as Profession? Vocation? Career?
I just finished listening to an interview with Robert Storr, the current Dean of the Yale School of Art.
And I was struck, as I often am, by an academic’s perspective on being an artist. Which is not to say that Dean Storr is not part of the real art world. Far from it. He has extensive experience with curating (at the Museum of Modern Art, for one), exhibiting as a painter, he’s a respected art critic and a writer on the theory and practice of art.
The interview zeroed in on his plans for graduate and undergraduate students at Yale, yet I found that he had much to say that was… meaningful and useful beyond the Ivory Tower.
Alone… or in concert?
He alluded to the sweeping changes that technology and the Internet have perpetuated on the world of artists, suggesting that the time of the lone artist taking her wares to Sunday market is outdated. That artists need to participate collectively in new (as of yet, unknown) forms, and that this collective force is what will characterize and lead the future of art.
As part of a historical lineage
He spoke passionately about how crucial it is for all artists to be aware of the artists’ shoulders they stand upon. That not being aware of history–both past and current, local and international–is to diminish your creative capacity, not to mention limiting your ability to become original.
As part of a continuum
Storr was clear that no matter which direction you ultimately choose–artist, collector, curator, gallery owner, critic, teacher (or all)–that you need to become familiar with the major roles of the art world, for each one views art from an angle that is connected to the whole.
But his remarks also seemed remarkable disconnected from the lives his students will find themselves living once they graduate. Lives sustained in-between the world of ideas and making a living, which he failed to mention even once in the entire interview.
He made a pronouncement that artists should never consider art as a profession, but ‘just’ a vocation. And rolled his eyes at what he characterized as the current emphasis on art marketing.
So I looked up the words “vocation” and “profession.”
Vocation, profession, or career
- Profession: An occupation requiring training in the liberal arts or sciences
- Vocation: same as above, plus: An urge or predisposition to undertake a certain kind of work: a calling
- Career: A chosen pursuit; the general course or progression of one’s life
Looking these over, I can see the immediate need for another.
- Provocareer: the training (self taught or otherwise), ignited by the ‘urge’ to create and fueled by the freedom to choose over the course of your lifetime
Before the first smARTist Telesummit in 2007, I rarely heard anyone refer to artists as having a career. That term has historically been reserved for lawyers, doctors, and candlestick makers. Heck, art didn’t qualify as a ‘business’ until the 1970s when lee Caplin wrote the first edition of The Business of Art.
By the third edition in 1998, art was a $40 billion industry, with approximately 1.5 million jobs, and $3.5 billion paid to Uncle Sam in taxes. (Which reminds me, one of our January smARTist presenters, a CPA for artists, is presenting “Watch Your Wallet: Strategic Tax Planning for the Visual Artists.”)
Written by Ariane Goodwin
Posted under Insight, Let's Debate!
Tags: art avocation, art career, art history, art profession, art students, artists, Dean Storr, fine art, graduate art students, Robert Storr, smARTIST Career Blog, undergraduate art students, Yale School of Art
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576 days ago,
Jeanne Beck said:
A thought-provoking post, Ariane. Viewing art as a “career”, is it only the marketplace that validates or “licenses” certain artists to “practice” successfully??? Are we replacing the lifelong process of and commitment to mastering one’s medium as an artist with producing modest but well-packaged and “saleable” art???
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576 days ago,
Shirley Williams said:
Hi Ariane
Very insightful. As a “professional” artist called to create art as a “vocation” and having made my living at it as a “career” for 20 years, I can really relate to your comments.
The 3 don’t have to be separate. And aspiring to all 3 doesn’t mean one has to cave in to the most common denominator just to sell art.
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576 days ago,
Jan Blencowe said:
Here’s the rub w/ Robert Storr’s perspective. I believe he sees success for an artist coming only out of his world, academia. Not a knock to Mr. Storr or Yale (I was just there yesterday enjoying the Center for British Art) but understandably he speaks from what he knows and he knows academia. From his perspective an artist would start out earning a BFA, then MFA then begin applying for grants and fellowships, never approach a commercial gallery but write proposals to be awarded shows at college and university art galleries, from there they focus on landing a museum show and finally achieve success when they are written about and praised by academics and art critics who write books published by Yale. Of course some artists will find success going this route, but they and their art, is in fact, going to be far removed from the population at large. They will also be notoriously undercompensated financially for many years, until (maybe) they achieve recognition. Robert Storr isn’t wrong per se , he’s just limiting his ideas to what he knows: academia, museums and art theory, all valid but for most artists not the way to go if they need to support themselves or their family. In some ways this view continues to promote the myth of the noble starving artist, concerned only with the world of artistic ideas and not sulling theselves with the practical side of making a living. Unfortunately, this is why artists get taken advantage of and why young people are discouraged from pursuing art, because “you can’t make a living at it”. I prefer it when artists are empowered to develop their thought world of artistic and aesthetic ideas and ideals and are also armed with the business savvy to take control of the necessaries of life, like earning a living, which itself can be a very creative endeavor.
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576 days ago,
Marilyn Kamna said:
…Make Your Vocation Your Vacation…
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576 days ago,
Kathy Ostman-Magnusen said:
I remember the first time I started answering, “I am an artist” to the question, “What do you do?” It was awkward and I felt funny saying it because I was not really supporting myself as an artist. I knew it was possible though because my passion for art had survived outside jobs inside my pocket of dreams. I find that I still need outside funds but I do consider my ‘career’ and my ‘vocation’ as not only what I do but who I am.
I enjoyed this article very much as well as your take on Robert Storr’s perspective. Thank you!
Kathy
Me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/KathysArt
~~*~~
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576 days ago,
the famous nemo said:
good blog and lots of good responses
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576 days ago,
Ariane said:
Whoa…turn my back and suddenly there are six responses beckoning!
First, Jeanne B. No matter Storr’s academic perspective (and I think, Jan, that you are right on the money. Academia isn’t the notorious Ivory Tower for nothing!), his traditional hesitation at marketing art holds a worthwhile caution.
Yes, I do think artists can become over focused on success as dollars, especially in our current cultural obsession with the Holy Grail of Money at the center of our world. And in this dollar zeal, deeper, truer, more alive activity can be shuttled to one side.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can focus on money and the deeper paths simultaneously. Or alternately. Or on parallel tracks. Or…you decide.
And that’s the real beauty, as Shirley points out: you can use all three definitions. You choose. It’s your life to respond to and create as you so desire.
And this, as Jan B. comments, is what you as an artist must be clear about: Never replace your lifelong process of and commitment to mastering your medium as an artist by [only] producing modest but well-packaged and “saleable” art.
These are not exclusive realities. Do what you need to – all-ways.
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575 days ago,
Norman Ridenour said:
A bucket of worms has been opened. I much like the role of artist as provacatueur. Most people in the arts as well as academia are too much seeking success to be able to provoke potential buyers/supporters yet this is exactly what the world of thought and perception is supposed to do. Picasso said, “Art is a finger up the middle class ass”. Exactly. If it does not make people squirm it is not art. I have been through Carmel and Scottsdale galleries and of lot of New York and LA ones. Most to them sell “nice” things to make the buyers feel righteous, cultured and cool. Almost nothing to make the think or see is a new way.
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574 days ago,
McKee said:
Oh no! Do not let Academia into the art world. They always hampered or misguided evolvement in the art. If you have to speak about art you have to feel it. If you can’t succeed in your career then you teach it. I know, I was there in the academic world.
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574 days ago,
Ariane said:
I’ve always been attuned to artist as “provocateur.” But any proscribed role for the arts limits the potential for creative expression, and so I reject the notion that only the provocateur is a true artist.
The provocateur is one kind of artist, essential to keeping us awake, prodding us out of complacence and denial, but in the end it is still only one path an artist may choose–no more, no less.
And, I feel the same way about academia in the arts. It has its place. It holds the theoretical above the fray of commerce so ideas are not swallowed by the necessity of earning a living–though all of academia is obviously earning a living. But the academic role in the arts is, in the end, only one of many–no more, no less.
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573 days ago,
Kay Ballard said:
Great post, Ariane, and interesting conversation.
As a collector, I want to buy from artists who consider creating and producing art their career. I tend to use the term working artist or professional artist to distinguish such artists from hobbyists or those who dabble. I admit to being favorably impressed from time to time when I learn that an artist holds a BFA or an MFA, but only because it is one indication that the artist takes his or her work seriously.
As a somewhat uppity lawyer, I don’t consider art a profession and prefer using that word exclusively to refer the classic professions.
I love the term provocareer and will add it to my word list.
And to Norman: As a collector, I want all of the above. I want to feel “righteous, cultured, and cool”–by buying art that “makes me think and see in a new way.”
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573 days ago,
Marilyn Kamna said:
Well said Kay, you certainly DO come across as an “uppity lawyer”.
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573 days ago,
Kay Ballard said:
Marilyn, thank you for what I choose to consider a warm embrace of my authenticity. I do so without further comment on how you “come across.”
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573 days ago,
Marilyn Kamna said:
As You have come a cross so do I…the lack of respect that you show for artist’s is clear…not a thought that I hold dear…
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573 days ago,
Marilyn Kamna said:
Your “authenticity” in but an illusion in your own mind…degrading artists is less than kind.
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573 days ago,
Ariane said:
Whoa here…let’s take a deep breath… (don’t you just hate people who tell you to do that when you’re ready to punch out someone’s lights?)
And, I’m going to jump right in here and probably not make friends.
Marilyn, your response to Kay’s post, even if you didn’t mean it to be, comes across as mean spirited. You know how black people can call each other ‘niggah’ with impunity. Well, a lawyer can call herself ‘uppity’ in the same vein…but for someone outside that culture to do it becomes derogatory.
And Kay, you bit her hook perfectly, repaying her in kind.
The result is what happens when we are more interested in making a point, than in being understood and understanding. It’s one of the characteristics of academic polemic that made me crazy in graduate school…and it doesn’t work too well here either.
Apologies are balm for the soul; thorns for a stubborn personality.
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573 days ago,
Kay Ballard said:
Marilyn, you are simply mistaken. There is nothing in my comment that implies a disrespect for artists. There is nothing in my comment that degrades artists.
As an art collector and a museum junkie, I both love and respect artists for their contribution to our shared culture and for the visual richness they bring to me personally. Little in my life brings me more pleasure or happiness than the works I have purchased from those who have chosen art as a career.
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573 days ago,
Kay Ballard said:
Ariane, a master of timing, I read your comment immediately after I posted my last comment.
You are correct; I bit at the baited hook.
Every writer needs a reader, and Marilyn’s reaction to my original comment was both unpleasant and instructive for me to read.
At any rate, I am done.
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573 days ago,
Marilyn Kamna said:
THIS WORLD WE ARE LIVING IN IS MIGHTY HARD TO BEAT…YOU GET A THORN WITH EVERY ROSE …BUT AIN’T THOSE ROSES SWEET.
-my very artistic and ariculate grandmother
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573 days ago,
Marilyn Kamna said:
I meant to say ARTiculate!
and I am done as well…I’m with Picasso!
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573 days ago,
Ariane said:
Thanks, Kay, for hanging in and seeing if you could turn this boat around. I agree, there was zip, zero, zilch in your post to call out such a bitter response.
Sometimes we are triggered by words that remind us of other times–no-longer-conscious, of course–of people and events of old. And the arrow of time flies out and hits the wrong one.
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573 days ago,
Tara Reed said:
Very interesting post Ariane! I’m left scratching my head at the Dean… why isn’t art a career?
Maybe it is my business background showing through but if someone is spending their days doing something, learning and earning a living what about that ISN’T a career? To me you can write code, argue law, teach children, create art, whatever — if you are working at it it can be a career.
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573 days ago,
Ariane said:
eYup, Tara, I’m with you! But he’s in a different universe, really. I know because it’s where I got my doctorate and the rarified air of ideas makes breathing the dust of daily survival a high altitude affair.
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572 days ago,
McKee said:
And here is a good example what I called in my previous post “Academic” and how is foreign in sensitive art primed mind.
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