<p>Like bopambo, ShawWife is a successful gallery artist. She began school studying something else but always wanted to be an artist. She is quite talented – finished a BFA in 2 years at one of the best art schools in the country and had two shows (a small one-person show at a nearby university gallery and another at a commercial gallery in the same city as these two schools) in the month she graduated. A curator at a major regional museum dropped by the commercial gallery and left his card and asked her to stop by. She’s had something like 25 one-person shows at commercial galleries, shows at museums and university galleries and countless group shows. Her work sells. </p>
<p>I advised her not to teach art because there are a zillion people who want to be artists and art-related jobs are underpaid because the labor supply is so great. I told her to get well-known and they’d be asking her to teach. They don’t exactly because she never got a BFA but they pay her to guest lecture at universities and museums, frequently talking about her own work. She now has offers to take groups to Europe on teaching trips. </p>
<p>That is the good news. The bad news is that in many years she would would not make that much of a living. In a good year, she could cover a much less expensive life than the one we live (but she would have chosen a much lower cost life). In the off-years, she would not make that much money. However, she married well (she says) and I have told her not to torque her work to make money. The NY gallery that has begun to show her (one-person show unfortunately in the dead of the recession but sold a bunch of the work) plans to raise triple her prices over time. At that point, she could pay for my retirement (though I don’t plan to retire).</p>
<p>One of her professors in art school told his class, “Don’t go into art unless you can’t do anything else.” By that he meant the need to do the art as much as other skills. It can be a lonely career if you are not successful – but to be successful, you need to learn to hustle. Self-marketing is very important. ShawWife would be considerably more successful if she were good at hustling and self-marketing.</p>
<p>Lots of artists we know support themselves working as carpenters or painters or by teaching art (but they typically have little time for art). A few write software. A number are self-supporting (almost all impressive self-promoters) and a few have married well.</p>
<p>Here’s my observation. The art world and child-bearing are sexist. Based upon my random sample, there seem to be a higher proportion of financially successful male artists even though art schools have more females. Many years ago, a NY gallery told ShawWife when she became pregnant that they would not carry her – they invest lots in each artists (as they see it) and pregnant women’s productivity declines. ShawWife was mad at the time, but in fact, her productivity did go down for a number of years. Had a bump up when both kids were in elementary school, a big bump up when the youngest kid was in HS, and I anticipate a major flurry of energy as the nest empties. The galleries like thin, blond women (at least in NY) even if they are older and are less excited about older women than older men. Younger female artists can (but don’t always) get a big boost from having relationships with more connected, older male artists. And, some, like my wife, marry someone who can support them and wait for their career to be economically viable.</p>