Does Your Day Job Quietly Support Your Art?
Read on the Web
Hi Reader,
Welcome to this edition of Artzlife.
⠀
Quiet Support
Just What You Need
Many artists, and hobby artists, live with a quiet tension. There is the work you do to pay the bills and the work you feel called to make. It can seem as though one takes from the other, leaving your art squeezed into spare moments.
But what if that is not the full story? What if your day job is not blocking your creativity at all, but quietly supporting it?
Seen another way, the work that sustains you, may already be giving your art, and hobby art, the safety and space it needs to exist.
⠀
⠀
A Kinder Way to See Your Day Job
You are Not Your Job
Your day job is not the enemy of your art. It can be a quiet supporter, much like a modern patron.
It pays the bills, keeps life steady and gives you room to create without constant worry. You are not your job. You are an artist who happens to have one.
⠀
Your Job as a Modern Patron
Reality
A day job provides material support so you can follow your creative path. Whether your art is music, theatre, visual arts, dance or crafts like pottery, weaving or crochet, your work allows you to keep creating while still meeting your basic needs.
This kind of support may not look glamorous, but it matters.
⠀
Artists Have Always Been Supported
Patronage
It seems that artists have rarely created in isolation.
Vincent
Vincent van Gogh was supported throughout his life by his younger brother Theo. Theo helped with money, paid for materials and offered constant encouragement through letters.
He believed in Vincent long before the rest of the world did. That steady support from his brother allowed Vincent to keep painting through hardship and doubt.
Michelangelo
Michelangelo also benefited from support early in his life. As a teenager, he was taken into the household of the Medici family in Florence.
They gave him a place to live, access to learning and freedom from the struggle of daily survival. That breathing room allowed his talent to grow.
Support has always shaped art, even when it is quiet or unseen.
⠀
Letting Go of Resentment
Your Energy
Instead of resenting your day job, you might try to see it as something which helps your art exist. If it feeds you and keeps you housed, it is already doing important work.
This shift of perspective does not mean loving your job. It simply means acknowledging exactly what it provides.
If you are able, a job which leaves you some energy is helpful. Something you can do without carrying it home in your head or fielding phone calls, emails and texts after hours.
Even demanding work can still serve to support you during certain seasons of your life.
⠀
Making Time Where You Can
Small Moments
There is nothing new or clever here. These are small, ordinary ways to stay connected to your art.
An hour in the morning before work can be surprisingly productive.
Lunchtime may become a small creative pocket, even if it is just sketching or writing a few lines.
In the evening, after your family time, even thirty to sixty minutes can be enough.
On weekends, you might protect a few focused hours for yourself and for your art.
Small moments matter. They add up over time.
⠀
How This Looks for Me
Four Days
I work four days a week and have three days off. I try to focus on my hobby art on my days off, but I also take my sketchbook to work. I draw during lunch and jot ideas down as they come.
I eke out some small moments, but they keep me connected to the larger work I am doing and visualizing.
I also carry a small A6 field notebook for thoughts and ideas because inspiration rarely arrives on schedule.
⠀
Carry Your Art with You
In Your Bag
You do not need much. A sketchbook, a pencil and an eraser are enough. You do not have to finish anything in one sitting. Just capturing ideas as they arrive keeps your creative thread alive.
⠀
A Question to Sit With
Balance
What if your job already supports your art more than you realize?
This simple question can soften how you see your days at the coal face and help you notice the quiet ways in which your life already makes room for creativity.
⠀
