Stop Being a Starving Artist

by Ben Toalson | Aug 5, 2014 | In The Boat

I Was An Artistic Child

I self identified early on as an artist… When I say artist, I mean one who is generally interested in and cannot help but to express his or her self through some or many forms of artistic mediums. For me it has been a variety of things, primarily music, but also acting, illustrating, painting, photography, video. It’s gotten to the point where I can almost always find some art in everything. Cooking, for example, is a form of art. Not just the presentation, but also the method. Just about every day I am struck with the urge to pursue some random artistic expression or am inspired by something I see to do something similar. Art continues to fill me with wonder and curiosity, just like it did when I was a child.

Art In Its Purest Form

With children of my own I can see it so clearly in them as well. Their love for making things is manifest in piles and piles of drawings, cardboard buildings for their stuffed animals, towers made from anything but actual building blocks, impromptu theatrical productions, dancing, singing, composing strange melodies on our old piano, stories written and characters imagined on any piece of paper that was within reach at the time of conception… the list goes on. It’s beautiful.

Time To Grow Up

Sometimes, when enjoying one of their most recent pieces, I catch myself feeling a little jealous at the freedom in which they create. It’s a freedom I used to experience as a child. The freedom gave way to responsibility as I grew older. I don’t remember if it was the voices of others or my own that said, “The artist thing was great when you were a kid, but now you’re an adult and you have to choose: do you want to be a starving artist or do you want to get a real job and contribute to society?”

A Growing Sickness

I still questioned this and asked, “Why not both?” So I got a real job, but continued my artistic pursuits on the side. Even before I made the transition into adulthood, however, there was a sickness that was slowly creeping into my life, into my artistry.

As a young man I was exposed to this romantic idea of the “Starving Artist.” The starving artist may look many different ways to many different people, but this is the picture that I had of him:

A Profile of the Starving Artist

His appearance is disheveled. His hair, his choice of clothes, the way he wears his satchel–all his subtle way of saying ‘I don’t have the time or creative energy to care about how I look.’ He is regularly late in every aspect. Bills, meetings, appointments; he is no respecter of persons but treats each activity with an equal level of carelessness. He is rarely present with the people in his company, and is often perceived to be aloof. His life is filled with trial and struggle as if every force in the universe were converging on him to keep him from his creative work. He is an expert at mining the angst from even the lightest of circumstances and even relishes in this activity as a source of fuel for his artistic expression. His mantra is, “Life is pain and pain when filtered through the suffering human soul, is art.” Anything outside of his art is tasteless, meaningless. And this lifestyle is how he will one day create a masterpiece that will simultaneously inspire and break the hearts of the masses.

The Lie I Began to Believe

So, that took a pretty dark turn. It wasn’t this exact idea that started creeping into my mind as a young person… I was mostly riffing just now… but even a mild form of this idea can be a destructive force in the life of a budding artist. Little by little I started giving into it. Especially when the world, or some form of self-fulfilling-prophecy, began to confirm what I was starting to believe: If I want to be an artist, I will suffer for my art.

Over the years, I’ve struggle to reconcile my love for art with the practical things of life. I have, at times, lived into the starving artist stereotype or, at best, felt as though I were leading two lives; the life of the irresponsible artist, and the life of the responsible adult cleaning up after the other guy. One day, in the middle of the cycle I finally asked, “does it really have to be this way?”

An Inevitability or a Choice?

I started learning about artists who lived lives full of routine and rich relationships. Artists whose work was praised by their contemporaries and added beauty and inspiration to the world around them. At some point I decided that the starving artist is not a reality that one must experience but a choice among many choices for how to live into one’s artistic existence.

Art and Life Can Co-Exist

I can have routine and rhythm. I can get up at the same time every morning and go through the same steps getting myself ready for the day and take steps each night preparing myself for sleep. I can even have something close to ritual, where there is deeper meaning to each of these steps that breathe new life and inspiration into each new day.

I can take care of myself. I can get enough sleep and exercise and take pride in my physical appearance as an outward representation of an inner strength. I can approach each new day feeling refreshed and revitalized, strong and confident, though perhaps uncertain about the unforeseen circumstances of the day, certain of the power I possess to face them.

I can take joy in and draw inspiration from deep, meaningful relationships. Ones in which I am known, not just for my strengths, but also for my weaknesses, and loved regardless. I can find meaning and purpose in the giving of myself.

Birthing Pains

The pursuit of art is a struggle, yes, but I see it as a struggle in the way that bringing a child into the world is a struggle. Art grows and develops inside of us and when we finally birth it into the world, it can bring more pain and struggle than we ever thought we were capable of handling, and at the same time, fills your world with life, gives you a new perspective, makes you more mature and selfless and gives you joy that you cannot contain. We become the caretakers and the stewards of something that ultimately doesn’t belong to us, but that we get to help grow and develop until it finds its way into the world.

Choose to be a “Thriving Artist”

I want so strongly to dispel the lies that we believe about struggling in our pursuit of artistic expression. There are so many aspects of this idea that I want to explore, but I want to start simply by saying that if you think you must suffer for your art, if you think your art doesn’t have a place of value in this world, if you think you must necessarily live into this false ideal in order to produce your best work, STOP! Stop believing these lies and allow yourself to live well and whole. Art isn’t borne of pain and suffering, such a narrow part of the human experience, but is an expression of the WHOLE human experience. Don’t be a “starving artist”, instead choose to be a “thriving artist.”