How To Make Money From Your Art in Two Words

I was in London, meeting with a group of Working Artist alumni over coffee. We were talking about making money and finding success by working as an artist. And one of the artists asked me directly: how can I make more money working as an artist?

I’m not sure anyone really liked my answer. But they all agreed that it was the truth.

I said two words: focus and discipline.

Nobody likes those two words, do they. Well — I’m just the messenger.

1. Focus

I know a lot of you are in love with creativity, with the Muse. You love to explore and make and learn and play. It’s part of being a creative person, and I love that stuff too. It’s important. However — if your aim is to make money, then you really do need to focus. Whether it’s on one style or one medium or even both. The more focused you are, the easier it will be to connect with your audience and sell your work. The more focused your message, the more focused your audience. People will know who you are and they will understand what you do.

I want to talk about the artist William Wegman for a minute. If you don’t know his name, I am sure that you know his work. He’s photographed his Weimaraner dogs and has made a massive career out of doing this for nearly five decades — licensing deals worth millions, dozens of books, galleries around the world, and exhibitions in nearly every major museum internationally.

Do you think William Wegman started out thinking that photographing his dogs would be creatively fulfilling for the rest of his career? The answer is no. He told me he was really worried when he started — he didn’t want to become known as the dog guy. In his heart he’s also a painter, and he wanted to explore other subject matter. In fact, he quit photographing his dogs for quite a while.

But he learned that this work with his dogs was really a blessing. By going back to it and exploring it as deeply as he could — which is pretty deep, when you consider his nearly 50-year career — he was able to use this one subject to explore social and cultural issues that interested him. Not only that, but this work would eventually afford him the time to do the painting and other creative work unrelated to dogs. His paintings are wonderful. I love them. But not many people have seen them — there just isn’t a huge market for that work.

Does he curse the paintings? Or does he curse the dogs? He focuses — and he has built a massive career that allows him to have a satisfying love affair with the Muse, with absolutely no pressure or expectations.

Do you see how that works?

A word about money and what it actually means

A lot of you tell me that you want to make money from your art — a lot of money, in fact. But when I ask you why, the answer often isn’t about financial need. It’s about what you think money represents. There’s this belief out there that making money from your art means that you have talent.

It does not. It means that the market has found this work worthy. We all know artists who are making money but don’t have talent or vision. And we all know artists who are incredibly talented but don’t make money at all. Money does not validate your talent. The work itself validates your talent.

We happen to live in a society that tells us our self-worth should only be measured by our net worth. I would suggest that it’s part of an artist’s job to refuse to bow to this kind of false value measurement — to bring these kinds of limiting assumptions into question, for yourself and for others. It’s part of your job to form a relationship with your Muse and your work that does not allow for outside validation, but instead nourishes you from within.

It’s okay to make money from your art. But it’s not okay to measure your value — or your talent — by your bank account.

2. Discipline

Let’s get back to how we do make money — because let’s face it, we all have to eat. If you want to use your creativity to make the money you need to pay your rent, put food on your table, or pay your bills, then you do need to focus. You also need to develop discipline.

What do I mean by discipline? I mean doing the work — getting into the studio religiously, doing the administrative work religiously, participating in your artist community, putting the time and energy into the business of your creativity. I’m not talking about struggling. I believe that you can succeed without struggling or even striving. But you do need to focus and to be consistent.

I have known many, many commercially successful artists. And the two things they all have in common are focus and discipline.

So while focus and discipline may not be your favorite words —

the good news is that success is in your hands.

Written by Crista Cloutier, artist mentor + founder of The Working Artist. (learn more about Crista here)