My goal out of grad school, MFA in hand, was to teach, preferably at the college level, while building and maintaining my creative practice (easy, right?). And whether or not this is why that didn’t happen, I think it’s important to add the historical context here that I finished grad school in the middle of the great recession. In short, things didn’t go quite as planned (I was also 8 months pregnant at the time, but that story is for another post—and another season…it’s a significant detail but 14 years later, I think the recession was actually a greater factor and one that I share with other artists who came of age, so to speak, during that time, with or without a baby in tow). Like a lot of creative people around this time, I discovered Etsy, an “accidental entrepreneur,” if you will. For several years between kids, selling handmade wedding invitations via Etsy was my more-or-less full-time gig. I hadn’t really turned a hobby into a side hustle; I was simply trying to find something creative and flexible to do to make money at a time when I couldn’t even get an interview for one of the 40+ jobs I applied to after moving cross-country and giving up on teaching. So when the, as I call it, “quit your day job” backlash began with articles praising the humble hobby and warning against turning said hobby into a side hustle I was confused and a little irritated. On top of conflating a “hobby” with a robust creative practice, articles boasting the benefits of a day job (and there are many that I’ll explore in future posts) seemed to ignore the fact that there’s simply not much time leftover after a full day of work and all of life’s other obligations to pursue much else, hobby or otherwise. I also tired of hearing this keep your day job advice from creative folks who themselves had essentially quit their day jobs long ago.
I mean, sure, Paterson might seem like the dream until you’re the one driving the bus all day, writing snippets of poems on your lunch break.
When you’re a child, you learn there are three dimensions: height, width, and depth. Like a shoebox. Then later, you hear there’s a fourth dimension: time.
Hell, even Austin Kleon admits that he embezzled time from his employer to finish his first book. On the other hand, one thing I certainly wanted to avoid with the podcast was romanticizing the hustle of cobbling together multiple, likely lower-paying if creatively more satisfying gigs that might seem more aligned with an artist’s creative pursuits. Should you try to turn your side hustle into a paid gig? Are there greater benefits to your creative practice when you make money in other ways? Is it possible to have a (likely full-time) day job and still carve out enough time for a studio practice, family, friends, exercise, etc.? In season one of the podcast, I asked ten artists this question and I got ten different answers. Every artist approaches solving this impossible math equation a little differently and I suspect the solution, if there is one, changes over time as well. “The best definition of success is time, “ Jerry Saltz writes in How to Be an Artist, “the time to do your work.” It really is that simple.