3 ms·
I'm not sure if "quitting their day jobs" has the same effect for an artist versus, say, a programmer. They deliberately work jobs like restaurants, not because
by neilk 6y ago
I'm not sure if "quitting their day jobs" has the same effect for an artist versus, say, a programmer. They deliberately work jobs like restaurants, not because they can't do anything else, but because they are easily quittable when an opportunity arises.
- dorkwood 6y agoWhat are you basing this on? Most of the artists I've met either work in film, television, advertising or video games. I've worked as both an artist and a developer and your categorization doesn't strike me as common. Also one of the artists I was talking about, who quit to work on NFTs, was design director at one of the world's biggest agencies, so not exactly waiting tables.
- neilk 6y agoI was basing it on the finest anecdata! But yes, I was thinking about artists waiting tables. My spouse works in theatre, and it's normal even for modestly successful actors and artists to be working service jobs. I have asked why they worked those kinds of jobs when they were clearly smart enough to have better-paying white collar jobs, and they always say that quittability was one of their top concerns. In the period where one could live in San Francisco for a non-insane amount of money, I knew lots of visual artists and sculptors who lived like that. (Anyway, all of them are now coding or have left.) I don't mean to contradict your experience: the word "artist" covers a pretty wide swathe.
- dorkwood 6y agoThats ok! I guess we both have slightly different experiences. Thanks for sharing that additional context.