Wealth as a predictor of whether an person pursues a creative profession (2019)

To a close approximation, everyone wants to make art, but very few want to pay anyone to make it. So the people who make it either are people who don't have to worry about money (because they are independently wealthy) or they're the lucky few who get paid.

This is as old as history of art. To me art is &quot;anything you don&#x27;t have to do&quot;. People start doing art when their basic needs are met and then start doing things they don&#x27;t have to do to survive.<p>Looking in history you can see a lot of rich kid artists doing great art. For instance Gustav Klimt was extremely wealthy. He literally painted with gold! His art is great but without his family&#x27;s wealth nobody would discover his talent.

I stopped trying to be a comedian professionally when I found out Second City main stage performers made about 35K per year. The most prestigious comedy job in Chicago paid less than my entry level office job.<p>I don&#x27;t regret it but at the time it was fairly depressing. You don&#x27;t have to love it enough to do it as a career, you have to love it enough to do it as a career while understanding you will very likely never be able to support yourself by doing it. That is a pretty tough reality.

Buying and selling modern art in today&#x27;s market seems to be more related to tax avoidance and money laundering schemes than anything else. If you think of the artist&#x27;s job as creating the vehicle, then it should be pretty lucrative.<p>&gt; &quot;Consider that when the Mexican government passed a law in the early 2010s to require more information about buyers, and how much cash could be spent on a single piece of art, the market cratered, as sales dipped 70 percent in less than a year. Many believed that was because Mexican cartel rings had previously been the biggest buyers in the market.&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.artandobject.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;how-money-laundering-works-art-world" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.artandobject.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;how-money-laundering-works...</a>

Sheesh. Ask me why I dropped band in favor of an software internship senior year of high school. The answer will abjectly fail to shock or surprise you.

Among immigrants we keep telling ourselves variations of a joke about how first generation are carpenters, second - lawyers, and third - artists

Outside of race &#x2F; gender, the article doesn&#x27;t touch on whether this has got worse or better. I would put money on it having got much worse since the 20th century, with massively increased living costs (mostly housing) and decreased opportunities for the non-wealthy &#x2F; non-connected.

Years ago I read about what the purpose behind all these liberal arts programs in universities were meant for and it started to click that the intent was in good faith and not out of elitism or anything like that. The intent was to democratize privilege - liberal arts was a set of fields dominated by the already wealthy or affluent that didn&#x27;t have to have a vocation to survive.

I wonder if wealth is also a predictor of whether a person decides to create a start-up? Easier to take big risks if you have family to fall back on.

I wonder how much amazing art and literature is being lost because the people who yearn to make it are stuck doing pointless jobs instead.

seems obvious to me.<p>if your parents are loaded you don&#x27;t need to worry about finding a job that will earn you a living. simple.

It seems to me in north of Europe if you finance your art making by yourself you are perceived as kind of a hack. You need grant, not maybe because of the money but to validate you as being part of the scene. On the other hand many of the artists are still from rich families, because it is still a gamble.

“The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.” - John Adams

Creative work doesn&#x27;t pay well &lt;-&gt; Creative work doesn&#x27;t pay well because people who are competing for the jobs don&#x27;t need to make money off their job

Why the edit in the title with the added incorrect spelling? (Original title : Wealth Is a Strong Predictor of Whether an Individual Pursues a Creative Profession)

The more I learn about the the lives of artists and aspiring artists the more I&#x27;m glad I don&#x27;t have an artistic bone in my body. It seems rough.

I don&#x27;t remember who said that, but the quote stuck in my mind. If you are musician performing in the underground crossing, there is a huge difference in your spirit if you are doing it just for kicks or if you have to bring home enough money to pay the rent and feed your family.

If we take the percentage of wealthy people that become artists as the baseline inclination of human nature, then we conclude that 90% of non-wealthy people are discouraged from becoming artists.<p>It&#x27;d be interesting to know how much of this happens in childhood vs. when they&#x27;re choosing a career as young adults.

Let me come up with one of the exceptions, my ex girlfriend who is single-handedly working her way up creating and selling art, without money from family or anyone else, while first working and saving money on the side for years to kickstart her dream of becoming a fulltime artist: tramainedesenna.com

Could go a long way to explain the “Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations” figure of speech.

I am not saying that the data in the story is wrong, but my (tiny) sample of artist I know and some I have worked with in the US and Norway come from middle class or lower background and they do art because they need to, compelled by an ardent desire &#x2F; obsession.<p>None have nest eggs or rich parentes that support them.<p>They usually have a hard time getting art into galleries. Some run galleries as a collective, but few of those make it into &quot;high society&quot;<p>A while ago I left my corporate developer &#x2F; manager to pursue life as an artist. Things to several circumstances not important here, I do not have a nest egg, I make my living off of small stipends when I can get them, and a few other programs that the government provides. (Nice thing in Norway). It is difficult, it is an enormous change in circumstances. Some hurt. I am happier than before.<p>Perhaps I am hung up on that type of artist. &quot;Corporate&quot; artists might folio the story exactly.<p>You do have some artists who started late after already having a successful career. They have money and sometimes they have a network of important people to get them into galleries.<p>Like Howard Schatz who is a great photographer now. After having a long and distinguished career as an ophthalmologist.<p>Then you have artists like Hunter Biden who can sell paintings for $75K mostly due to fame. (One curator estimates that some pieces might fetch as much as 500K.

In other news, water is wet.

Where does product design categorise in creative profession?...

When better AI boosts productivity, basic income will give so many people more choices<p>Let’s make it happen, the world is waiting for us to do it<p>It’s not just better AI, let’s also digitize production processes in preparation