🎨 How I Made Art My Full Time Career!
People often ask me how I made art into my career. Usually they expect some answer like "I know a famous gallery owner in New York" or "My rich uncle buys all my art" - but this is how I actually did it.
First I spent literally over a thousand hours painting, 30-50 hours a week during evenings & on weekends after my day job at the beginning while I developed my unique style, skills and inventory.
Then I shared my art as much as I could on social media - 3-4 hours a day or more posting on different sites and groups etc... Eventually after selling over 100 paintings that way, I invested almost $800 in stickers. It took a while just to break even, but then I used the sticker profits, and profits from selling custom paintings to do prints. I invested everything back into my art career. I had to have the will to live humbly while I was starting my business.
The best piece of advice I got about making art into a career was this - "You can't ever expect to make a full time living working as an artist if you are not working as an artist full time!" - Chris Dyer . 2 weeks later, in October 2014, I quit my job and haven't looked back!
Now 4 years later I have my own showroom and my own line of silk scarves, blankets & more, some of my original paintings sell for thousands of dollars, my art is in 27 different countries, I've been interviewed for TV, magazines and podcasts, I have no boss and I love what I do every day! :)
Check out https://www.NexusVisions.com/art for all my art and stickers, prints, silk scarves, blankets & more!
A bunch of my early paintings
My showroom now
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I greatly admire those who can make a living from their art... as creatives, I believe it's what we all ultimately aspire to.
You're exactly right: You have to commit to your art, fully and completely. And it takes time. People often underestimate how much time it takes. I have had galleries, and I was always baffled by the large number of artists who felt all butthurt because they hadn't found fame and fortune as a result of "dabbling a bit."
There's the time factor,but,also the sacrifice factor. You can't paint 30-50 hours a week while you still have a day job, and still go out to bars, and binge watch Netflix etc.. Then there's the risk and investing money factor that most people aren't willing to take. The truth is starting an art business is not really harder than starting any other kind of business. But, it's not any easier either. "No one wants to spend money on art" - Says the artist who won't spend money on business cards, or prints, or tables at art fairs and other events where they can sell, or advertising, or a website.