art and commerce

Illustrator Karlotta Freier recalls being mocked by her art school classmates for asking about how to make a living as an illustrator. “No one would make fun of a plumbing student for asking about the business side of things,” she says, “so why don’t I get to ask?” For decades, the promise of a creative career was the alleviation of the worst parts

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The narrative that art or creativity isn’t real work (as described below) is just one element of a much bigger discussion about what is considered and adequately valued as “real work” in today's society and economic system and what isn’t. As I wrote in Aliveness: Reframing Productivity: “We don’t really think of productivity as a measure of being

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The prescriptive forms of the art world, as in the real world, alienate us from ourselves and our neighbors. It’s normal to make art. This is a manifest truth that is obscured by the institutional imperative to contain and monopolize awe.