How To Make A Living As An Artist

How To Make A Living As An Artist

 Isn’t that the dream of us all?  At the time of writing, if you search for ‘how to make a living as an artist’ on Google you get 115 million results – a lot of people clearly have an opinion and advice on the matter!  This article doesn’t provide a magic answer – because there isn’t one.  I just want to share with you some of my reflections and research around this subject, which is clearly very close to our hearts.

 
We all want to make a living as an artist but most of us have to do other things too in order to make ends meet.  I personally have slightly conflicted feelings about it.  If I have to produce my art solely with view to making something that will sell, I kind of lose interest in doing it.  My art is about self expression, so it rather goes against the reasons I create art in the first place.

 
Having said that, if I have to choose between working in a factory and making a living by producing artwork that will sell, it’s a no-brainer.  Of course it isn’t just about the artwork – you have to let the right people know about it.  You can be pretty sure there is a market for your artwork, but how do you reach out and find all those people that will happily pay you what your work is worth? 

I’m not putting myself forward as any kind of expert on making a living as an artist, and I’ve already said I have mixed feelings about it personally, but I think what most artists want is not so much advice on their artwork, but guidance and ideas on pushing it out into the world for the right price.  I think if you are flexible about the work you produce too, then there really are lots of opportunities to help you make your living as an artist.

 
After lots of digging around on the net I came across a glass artist called Steve Popkin, who has earned himself something of a reputation for mastering the art of selling his artwork.  He doesn’t claim to be an amazing artist, just to have worked hard at finding lots of successful ways of getting people and businesses to buy his artwork.

 
He has turned his experience into a detailed downloadable course on how to make a living as an artist.  It does appear to be extremely comprehensive, covering a huge range of different ways of generating sales and ensuring repeat sales.  I can’t find any evidence of anyone who has used his course and not been happy with it, and there are an awful lot of people who are happy to testify to its effectiveness.

 
Steve is in the US, so there are a few of the methods do not translate directly to the UK or other countries, but this only affects a small amount of his course.

 
We all want to make a living as an artist – Steve is already doing it, so maybe he has something worth looking at.

 
Check out Steve’s site HERE