By Deborah Bo Wen Chan Duong
Image courtesy of Christian Lartillot/CORBIS

I don’t know where the term “starving artist” came from, but it seems to be an idiom that gets associated with all artists no matter how much money they make, where they are in their careers, and how satisfied they insist they are with their chosen profession—especially those artists who are not part of any commercial discipline. Whether you are in the fine arts, classical music scene, an emerging artisan, an avant-garde fashion designer, or in any other field that gets limited exposure in mainstream media, it sometimes feels like the number one rule for validating your career choice is to never, ever, complain about the obstacles—particularly financial ones—that you encounter on the way.

It hardly seems fair, considering that the process of becoming a successful artist or artisan is really not much different than becoming, say, a scientific researcher or a licensed doctor. The skill-sets may vary, but the journey has many intersecting points. Becoming great at anything requires a lot of work in the field, recognition by your peers, and years of invested time and money before you get any substantial return on your hard work. The difference is that when a med school student complains about struggling to repay the $100,000 debt they have due to tuition fees after graduation, public opinion generally considers this acceptable, whereas when an artist groans about having to work 40 hours a week at craft shows and exhibits to pay off their $50,000 bank loan, he or she frequently doesn’t get a sympathetic ear or an encouraging pat on the back, but instead gets hit with that dreaded, infuriating question: Why don’t you just get a job?

Perhaps this discrepancy is due to the fact that people in general expect the med school graduate to succeed—that paying hundreds of dollars in tuition somehow guarantees a solid career and affluence a decade down the road. And, by the same token, somehow artists are expected to fail; the ratio of successful artists to unsuccessful ones is imagined by distraught parents and concerned friends to be one in a hundred, or some other disheartening number that is marginally better than the odds of winning the lottery.

Well, let me tell you—as someone who has graduated university with a science degree along with hundreds of Nobel-prize-winning-hopefuls, and someone who has had to struggle to sell their first painting and first set of hand-made earrings at a local craft show—nothing comes easy. In fact most things come hard. And whether you are doing a residency in a hospital, or sewing or beading or painting for your first media-covered show, it’s all a job—and a mighty big one at that. The number of people who say “I want to be a doctor” and fail, is not much different than the number of people who say “I want to be an artist” and fail. I have seen both scenarios happen to dozens of colleagues. Anyone who dedicates 15 hours a week to any profession will probably not be as successful as someone who pours 30 or 40 hours a week into their career. It doesn’t matter if you ultimately want to sew wounds or sew fabric for a living.

All I ask is that everyone give those of us who have decided to pursue a creative path—and forgo the 9-5-with-benefits—a break. We aren’t lazy; we are merely willing to make unconventional sacrifices to follow a passion that is no easier to fulfill and no less admirable than those who wish to pursue more conventional means to an end. Everyone seeks job satisfaction and financial security, but these things can be achieved in more than one way. And please, fellow artists, let’s give ourselves a break, too. We work hard, and we deserve the same respect and compassion as anyone else who works as hard as we do—whether our critics are willing to acknowledge it or not