creativity – SKETCHMAN BORIS

MAKING MONEY WITH ART

Making Art is synonymous to doing what I love, I am surprised when I come across interviews of writers who actually “hate” writing. I understand that it can be testing at times but not I guess that’s what love does. It’s akin to some difficult moments with the people you love.

Using Art to make money has bothered Artists for generations. So how do we shift that perspective to have a healthy outlook so that we can continue doing what we love?

Maybe that’s the first thing that comes to mind, making a living in a society that requires you to make money is nothing to be surprised of. So making money from art is hopefully what you love doing, because you don’t want to become famous doing something uniquely for money.

One of my favorite creators and I hope person, (I will meet in person some day for our annual BKK Comics Art Festival we organize in Bangkok), Neil GAIMAN told this story about the first gig he got as a writer. He published a book purely to get money, and he did, he got paid for the first printing and he bought an electric typewriter. And then the publisher went bankrupt and he had to look for another gig. At that moment he realized that if you do something that you enjoy doing, that you love doing, that brings you joy when you finish that piece, project, organize that event, etc. You get the money AND the satisfaction, the sense of fulfillment (actually sometimes not immediately it takes time). If you don’t get the money you at least get that sense of satisfaction, but if you solely do it for money, when you don’t get the money you feel being left out.

So always strive towards and bet on that future version of yourself that is doing the things you want to do now.

Making money is simply a way to continue doing what you love doing.

Another point that I would like to share, concerns those, like me, who strive to make a living doing their art full time. I am rephrasing this idea from Rick RUBIN after listening in a podcast when he said:

That one needs a stable source of income if you’re not making a living with your creation. So that you get the money to pay the bills and continue working on your craft.

I wanted to write about this because I personally struggle with this and have to be reminded of some things to myself, hence this me talking to myself aloud. This remains somewhat of a controversy among those who identify as “real’ Artists. (You can read my thoughts on what I think is a “REAL” Artist here)

Written by Sketchman Boris.

WHAT IS A “REAL” ARTIST?

We don’t need to define terms here, we know what we mean by Real Artists. Some would even ask if there is such a thing. And people tend to think of extremes when defining things not because it’s accurate but because it’s easier to remember than the subtle complexities of reality.

Like for example the first thing that came to my mind when I think of Real Artists, are people who have dedicated their life to Art. But that’s just a too simplistic way of looking at things.

People dedicate life to their career, family, business too, they shouldn’t be valued as anything lower than those who create Art.

Art can also be running a business beautifully, if you are an Artist and you are reading this, just because you don’t want to do it (business, I mean), it doesn’t mean that it’s a bad thing to do.

In life, I believe we should strive to build, organize it in a way where the practice of all the good, universal, characteristics of humanity is easy.

If there is a goal to be a real Artist, it should first be directed towards making your ability to stay human, stable. A business or Art that drives you away from your own humanity is a dangerous thing to pursue.

Now one might say, but the systems that we humans have built don’t incentivize that.

To that, I ask in response, the “systems” you are thinking of, are they running by themselves or run by humans?

Although I want this discussion to go on ad infinitum, thinking on every single aspect and element of life, I would like to simplify the analysis so that it allows your version of the practice to be included instead of going too much into specificity that might not serve anyone at all.

Remember we humans are bonded by love, and the systems we create are supposed to shield us from our fears. As a matter of fact I believe that systems are a result of our fears and the desire to break out of them or to improve them emanate from our unreasonable capacity to Love.

By this, I mean when we discuss the mechanics of the market and what one has to do to be successful in such a capitalist economy might not be in line with what an Artist’s true nature is.

Well what is an Artist’s true nature?

There are so many different types of Artists equaling the number of Artists themselves. Art should not be commodified just as the Artists shouldn’t be categorized.

But again there are ideas behind our head, whether you are involved in Art or not, pop out to flash images of the lonely, introvert, shy, or rude, anti-social all these things to different degrees.

The best example I can think of to frame this analysis is from my own experience as someone who makes comics and uses social media, I want to feed the machine that is my instagram account and create comics, sometimes i would worry too much about whether it would look good on social media and the more it happened, I ended up catching myself stopping my creation with the excuse that it would not be worthy of a post.

We post on social media what we create, not the other way around where we should create what can be posted on social media, yes the medium is the message but the medium is not your love, it’s definitely not your life.

I don’t think those things can be or should be separate. What you love doing should also bring you joy, and what brings you joy is also what you love doing. It’s as simple as that.

At the end of the day, what I am going to say might be disappointing but I believe is true and needs to be stated. You have to do what you love, therefore, you have to do what makes you happy. If it makes you happy to post everyday, then post everyday, if it makes you happy to post once a month, then post once a month. That way you won’t be miserable and look to systems and people to blame for your misery.

Streamline your thoughts, move the mountains of problems aside that prevent you from doing what you love and share that joy with others, you will see that your life organizes itself and becomes a system that runs on LOVE instead of Fear and misery.

Ok you might say but that won’t allow me to get followers, and make a living. To be completely honest I need to think, research and write about this in a separate piece but let me put this forward for the moment. If you are an artist who makes comics and wants to make a living selling books.

I see two things as an Artist who uses social media:

People who buy your comic books and like what you do and like YOU, will become your followers
People who follow you might buy your books and might like YOU.

Point 1 has more certainty than point 2 which means, you should focus on your core activity as an Artist who finds joy in creating and selling your art and the rest will follow.

This is how you are an Artist, you will become a better Artist and remain a REAL ARTIST.

As opposed to an AI Artist 😉

By Sketchman Boris

The cartoonist – ep. 3: Just do it

This is a webcomic series that will be a sort of journal into the mind of a cartoonist and I plan to comment on art and creativity in general. I have a lot of things to say so hopefully this series will take a long time to end maybe it’ll never end until I stop thinking of things to say. I agree that this very unpolished but like Bobo says in this episode I just wanted to say what i have in my mind without any filters. Hopefully you’ll follow and enjoy it. If you have any comments i’ll be happy to respond.