The confused artist

It’s okay to do it just for yourself. And maybe a carefully selected companion. (The Library of Congress)

Back when I was trying for a career as a singer/songwriter, I gave no thought to what other people might enjoy.

I tried to make my songs catchy and clever because I liked songs that were catchy and clever. But if anyone else happened to like them, that was more or less a coincidence. And that is pretty much the way art works, so that’s fine.

That said, while that approach may be how you satisfy your own inner promptings as an artist, it’s not how you make a living as an artist. And I had no idea how to bridge that gap. I didn’t know how to sell myself. I didn’t know how to create a demo that would be appealing to the booker of a club, a record label, or even a fan. Thus, I labor in musical obscurity to this day.

I was a confused young artist. I didn’t know how to stay true to myself while also providing a service to others (i.e., entertaining them or moving them emotionally). That led to frustration because I didn’t understand why I couldn’t build any momentum.

My career as a music educator began to take off just in time to lift me out of destitution. That worked because the whole point of teaching music lessons was to offer a service that was useful to other people. It wasn’t about what I wanted — it was about serving them and giving them what they wanted. I found it easy to connect with people in that way, and I found exactly the success that had eluded me as a musical artist.

Because it would be all too easy to extrapolate value judgments here, I hasten to add that being a business owner isn’t better than being an artist. And it’s certainly possible to hold both identities at the same time. But the key, as we see so often, is intention. We have to consciously choose the path forward: Which things do we do our way, and which things will we do because it’s what the market wants? What will we do regardless of the money, and what will we do specifically with the intention of generating it?

Many of us seek to be able to do both at the same time: effortlessly delight the market and satisfy our muse. We love the stories about people who were just minding their own business and being their weird selves when they became overnight sensations. But either the story is fantasy and the person had been preparing every day for their success, or the person really was an overnight success and now their life is ruined until they invest in therapy and connect with a trustworthy financial advisor. Somewhere along the way, the price will be paid.

More often, there’s no price to be paid because nobody is buying. That might not bother the artist who is making art in pursuit of their own goals, but it’s a big problem for the small business owner, who might also be an artist, who was actually hoping to make some money and doesn’t realize that it’s not working because they forgot to think about what the customer might want.

Twenty years later, the work that I do for money and the work that I most want to do are finally linked. But that’s not because I stayed true to my singular artistic vision. It’s more like how I found success as a music teacher: I got interested in what people want and how I could help them, and this time it overlapped nicely with what I wanted to do.

Theoretically, I could have done this as a musician, too, but I wasn’t willing or able to compromise and adapt at the time.

These days, I have a handful of different things I can offer, but I’m not going to keep offering stuff that nobody wants. There’s no benefit to me in determinedly sticking with something that’s not working. There is plenty of stuff that other people want that aligns with what I am good at and enjoy doing. That may not make me a great artist, but it will make me a satisfied business owner. And along the way, I can make art for my own enjoyment whenever I want. If someone else likes it, that’s a bonus.