Real Artists Don't Starve: Timeless Strategies for Thriving in the New Creative Age

by Jeff Goins

When we find ways to make money, it buys us time and gives us the opportunity to create more. This was why Michelangelo never stopped working long after he’d made enough to retire. Income wasn’t the goal—continuing to create was. We don’t make art for the money. We make money so that we can make more art.

When I asked Lewis Hyde what his outlook on the future of art was, he said, “I think it’s neither bright nor dim. Art will always be with us. I believe that young people coming up may take ten years to find out if they can do that work and make a living at it and find an audience. There’s an in-between period of trying to get established, and during that period, young artists need support from their communities and need to have communities where they can lead dignified lives without becoming poor.”

This is the Rule of the Gift, which says that if art is your duty, then you must create. The nature of a gift is that it is to be given away, so the first duty of an artist is to do your work. There is a spirit of generosity in every creative act, but to embody this generosity we cannot starve. We must be creating with full bellies and full souls, and so the second duty of an artist is to make money to make art.

Walt Disney said, “I don’t make pictures just to make money. I make money to make more pictures.” This is what most of us want: not to get rich off our creations but to have enough time

and freedom to create what we want. We want to have the means to focus on what matters to us.

The more money you have, the more time you have; and the more time you have, the more art you can make.

He demanded respect from his patrons, and he earned prestige as an artist.

The point is not to make a fortune or become famous, but to do the work. We are all looking for a way to share our gift with the world without worrying about making a living. That means more than getting paid once for our

creations. It means building a life that allows us to keep creating.

That is the point—to keep making things. The success is the means, and the end is not having to quit. You don’t have to be rich to do that, but you can’t starve. That’s not how your best work is going to be made.