What is success in the arts world?
- Cinema-Communications
- a. I’ve always been an artist, but I never wanted to apply to arts programs because everyone has always told me art isn’t a career.
b. What defines a person as being successful?
c. Art isn’t a career.
3. My whole life I’ve been asked what I want to do with my life and I’ve never had a straight answer. To this everyone asks how I expect to be successful if I don’t know what I want to do with my life. I’ve always been a particularly ambitious person, and I have always wanted to be successful, but recently I’ve been questioning what that even means.
4. I want to learn what different people define as success. Is success based on what your goals are? Is success exclusive to the work field? Is success in the eye of the beholder or are you only successful if it matches everyone else’s idea of success?
5. Is success the meaning of life? Or it’s goal? Does everyone feel the need to succeed? Can one person deem themselves successful if no one else sees them as succeeding?
6. A big idea/an investigation.
7. Anyone having an existential crisis. Possibly young artists wanting to follow their dreams but with unsupportive entourage.
8. To explore the idea of success, to discover what true success could be.
10. For my feature story, I’d like to explore the idea of success. Everyone always says that to lead a good life, you must be successful. But what does success really mean? What is success? And who decides what success is? Can success be personal? Or is it defined by international fame? Or money? Or amount of work? If no one knows my name or my work, can I still be considered a successful artist? There are hundreds upon thousands of working screenwriters and actors and painters and filmmakers making money off of their craft, but we do not know their names or faces or work. Does this mean they are not successful? And there are dozens upon millions of sculptors and directors and dancers and writers who excel in their craft and love what they do, but don’t make money out of it. Does this mean they are not successful? Is making money out of your craft key in success? Or is creating enough to consider yourself successful? Is recognition really that important? And why? What would that change?
What is true success in the arts world?
As an artist, what is success?
I was born into a family of artists, but none of them have ever made any real money off of their craft. My grandfather was a cartoonist, my father a filmmaker, my aunt a sculptor and my brother a musician. My brother is the only one to have really pursued the arts as a means to make money, but has always had to work odd jobs to keep a roof over his head, and dumpster dive to feed himself. This has not given me much hope in seeing the arts world as a money making business. At every Christmas gathering, my aunts and uncles, dancers and writers, would gather around me to babble about how talented I was and how I should go to art school and become a real artist. Alas, I’d always brush them off with a roll of my eyes and an unenthused sigh. No one goes to art school, I’d think to myself. Not if you want to be successful.
When I was sixteen years old I started to get more invested in the arts scene. I got a summer job working as a studio assistant and got to meet a variety of artists, all working within the same studio space. One woman made all her money engraving rocks, a practice now long overtaken by machines. She engraved everything from garden stones to tombstones, all in beautiful cursive fonts. Another man specialized in custom made women’s hats. With feathers and flowers, beaded to perfection, for weddings and funerals. Or another woman who spent all day everyday making clay bones. Her goal was to eventually have a pile of bones big enough to fill a room.
All of these artists consider themselves to be successful, and I do, too. They don’t survive off their crafts, they hold jobs outside of the studio, but they make the art they wish to create, and have exposed their pieces in galleries or museums, and some on the heads of rich elderly women attending their grandchild’s christening.
The more artists I meet, the more I wonder about what true success really is. Art as a job is very difficult. The cash flow is unstable at best, and the job itself is under appreciated. Art has never, and is still never being associated with money. And without money, how would one be able to make art? This has always been a problem when considering art as a career. Art doesn’t pay enough.
So if we agree financial success isn’t likely in the arts world, what other possibilities for success are left? Worldwide recognition? When I was twelve I wanted to be a household name, big shot actress, but by the age of 19, I’m considering becoming a full time maid. Hitchcock created masterpieces, and yes they came from a great vision, but his vision was powered by a desire for his work to be seen. This recognition, fame, is the most sought after success out there, not only because money follows fame, but because what is the point of making something if it won’t be seen.
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