Schools teach artists how to make work but not how to sell it, leaving them dependent on galleries and gatekeepers. Learning to market yourself and build an audience directly changes everything, especially now that the tools exist to do it.
The other day, a friend of a friend was talking about the arts industry and on to say, you know, there's a reason that it's called being a starving artist. Boy, this like really triggered something in me. Bothered me because he ignored the real reason that this is an issue in the— they go to higher ed, they get people to teach them, but those people only teach them the craft. They don't teach them the craft of selling themselves, selling their work, marketing, right? Business. Simple business. This is a systemic problem. This is not just, you know, the fact that the industry is— When an artist learns how to treat themselves like a business, they will have the same hard as everyone else, but they have to get out from under the thumb of everyone else, out from under the thumb of the galleries, out from under the thumb of the markets and all these things. They have to build their own audience, and they have more of an opportunity to do that than they ever have, but most people don't see it. I truly believe that the moment that artists see that the world itself is not rigged against them, when they start to build their own business, their own opportunities, it changes everything. So is it more challenging? I don't know. Let me know in the comments. What do you think?
