This Requires You to Get Messy

In these parts, we hunt giants!

Last week I posed a question on Threads asking people if they could never make another penny from their art, would they still make it? The answer was yes; they do not allow money to get in the way of the art.

And something about this was disturbing to me because it also means that many do not strive to earn from their art and push away from the idea altogether. This is not the best news for me and this newsletter because my whole purpose is to help artists see their earning potential.

But maybe people don’t care enough. Perhaps it’s challenging to get anyone to refer The Hungry Artist because they don’t want to push the idea of being a pro artist upon their friends who hate it.

I followed this thought up with a Reel on Instagram, sharing my thoughts, quickly becoming my most popular Reel all year. The comments on that video were a bit more shocking—almost getting pushback, with some declaring that making money from art borders on contributing to our degrading economic system.

Most of the detractors commented that they didn’t want art to feel like a job, something they had to do to stay solvent. I understand that feeling, but I can’t help but wonder if it’s a limiting belief triggering a scarcity mindset. As I thought about this more, I came to a theory.

There’s this gap between the moment we finish a piece of art and the point where we hand it over to someone in exchange for money.

That gap is what Scott Belsky, founder of Behance, refers to as The Messy Middle, the parts between the good stuff. It’s the work we slog and stumble through reluctantly, begrudgingly, to get our work in the hands of others and receive the greats of all dopamine hits, the cha-ching sound from our mobile device signifying someone bought something.

I’m talking about the setup we assemble to take a photo, hoping we have enough time to catch the light from the only natural source in our apartment. It’s the image editing, the mockups, the posting of a listing on our shop, and the images we create specifically for social media.

It’s the time we spend posting on social media to a silent audience, gaining a few ❤️s and even fewer comments but no buyers.

It’s the shows where we stand upon molten asphalt while marginally interested viewers come in and ask us inane questions but never buy.

It’s everything that would steal the joy away from the making.

These feelings are valid, but they can be replaceable by making more sales than we ever made because we stuck with it, pushed through the hard times, and found our way to more attention, growth, and rabid collectors.

Unfortunately, most do not have the tenacity for that, which brings me back to my problem.

Is The Hungry Artist a fruitless effort because not enough people care about earning more from their creative work? Should I pivot and find a more inclined audience?

The answer is no!

Not because I’m trying to be a creative Don Quixote, tilting at windmills, but because I know there are enough of you in the world looking for something better and willing to work through the messy middle to hear more of those cash register chimes.

However, is it possible to have the freedom to create whatever we want without a compelling need to sell and a viable way to earn from our creative expression? The question is silly, honestly, because I’m sure you’ve already heard it in your head.

The answer is yes!

A few months ago, I made a YouTube video around a concept I call passion adjacent. The idea is that we have our passion projects, which make us happy, but may not make us money. On the other hand, there are potential projects that relate to or are adjacent to, our passion which help us earn without killing our desire to make.

Using Floortje Visser (ArtWithFlo), a digital artist and educator who makes whatever she wants and whose earnings are not dictated by the number of art pieces she creates.

Flo has a large following on YouTube and Instagram, sharing her tips and tricks for digital painting and illustration. These are all the ways she earns from her work:

• Patreon membership account

• Skillshare classes

• Ebooks

• Procreate brushes and tools

• Affiliate links

• YouTube

Yes, she makes a lot of art for these programs, but to my knowledge, she does not sell her art anywhere—no prints, no merch, no NFTs.

She doesn’t have the pressure of wondering whether her work will sell because she’s garnered a large, loyal fanbase that supports her in the ways she wishes to be supported.

Flo has been at this for a long time, but anyone can follow her lead. It comes down to two words.

Teach and Share

If you go back to Flo’s first videos on YouTube, all she does is share an overhead view of her working on an Ipad, with no speaking, only music, and sharing written tips on the iPad screen as she draws. Who can’t do that?

What I think is more interesting is that she doesn’t appear to chase the algorithm or trends. He’s not trying to paint whatever is popular with the kids now. She makes whatever she wants and does so in a way that helps people progress their skills.

Sometimes she makes highly detailed and complex drawings, not as a teaching tool but as a way for people to look over her shoulder as she works.

She makes and sells her brush kits, but she also teaches people how she made them so they can make their own.

Here’s the craziest part. She’s been sharing her tips online for a long time, and in the early stages, she was competent but not exceptional. Her fans still supported her because she was just far enough in front of them on the experience timeline for them to learn from her.

She didn’t need to be the best artist ever. She needs to be a little better than the person who wants to draw like her, and they’re willing to pay her for that.

But for every course, ebook, and brush pack she sells, hundreds of free videos are shared across her social media channels. She’s putting in the messy middle work to get to the sale.

And it’s there that I know most will not even try, but we’re to talk about the ones that will, and maybe that’s you.