The Fantasy vs. the Lived Experience
Now that I’ve been practicing as an artist for over 15 years, I look back on the wide-eyed version of myself as an eager emerging artist and try to reconcile some of the assumptions and expectations of being an artist that just don’t reflect my lived experience. I will recount some of these fantasies as they clash with the actualities of studio instability, lack of time, the overevaluation of technology and constant rejection or failure.
Myth #1: A Blissful Studio Experience
What I Pictured
I was charmed by the raw industrial spaces that established artists worked out of. The giant freight elevators with pull down wood screens, the tall white walls or the banks of antique glass windows, spun a romantic scene in my mind as I pictured myself photographing, editing or painting in these spaces. The perceived image of huge ceilings, concrete floors and creative chaos with materials all around the floor was slowly but surely shattered as the realities of moving into my own space set in.
My first studio after grad school was a promising start! I saved all I had by living with my parents and spending my earnings on a small 60 square foot dedicated space with tape marks on the floor and two plywood half-walls in a shared space with over 20 other mixed media artists. There were painters, jewelry-makers, sculptors, ceramicists and photographers all sharing the same energized and creatively charged space on the main floor of 87 Wade, a historical live-work industrial building in the west end of the city.
What Actually Happened (Moves, Rent, Broken Infrastructure)
The community spirit was infectious, and long days working easily turned into easy nights drinking and chatting while sharing artwork. Unfortunately, when the building rent prices skyrocketed and the units on all 4 floors were being renovated and turned into polished commercial spaces for tech/high end creative usage, we were all forced out.
Since then, like many other artists, I was forced to move my studio 4 times in a span of 5 years. Almost every year, I had to secure a new building for some tiresome and unoriginal reason: the building being redeveloped into more expensive, a residency expiration date, or even a significant break in and theft.
What I Wish I’d Known
Being sequestered into industrial buildings with damp basements, retrofitted washrooms, broken windows, no air-conditioning or proper heat became tiresome, debilitating and unsustainable. This leads me to my next point (and a bitter realisation) that I spent all my time trying to sustain my practice without having enough time to actually have a practice.
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Myth #2: You’ll Have All the Time You Want for Making Art
The Invisible Work (Admin, Proposals, Invoicing, Marketing)
While the perception on Instagram might have you thinking artists sit in their lofted studios to paint all day; the reality is, regrettably, much more boring. The endless studio time you imagine you have to make sketches, photograph models or experiment with throwing clay on a wheel just doesn’t work with the reality of the administrative and logistical tasks it takes to maintain a practice.
I would estimate that I spend 80% of my time writing exhibition proposals, grant applications, preparing invoices, editing photographs, creating videos for marketing and social media, attending meetings or teaching classes to supplement my income. While the assertion that artists or photographers have total autonomy with no fixed schedule and no direct boss is technically true, believing this negates the reality.
What this autonomy really looks like is juggling many freelance gigs including teaching, grants, caregiving, side jobs, other deadlines and the general financial instability that a career in the arts inevitably creates. Unfortunately, no—artists are not free to make art all day.
The “Freedom” Myth; A Realistic Time Breakdown
The sad reality is that the pleasure and joy we take from actually doing the skilled work we were trained to do often only makes up 10% – 20% of our time.
The business of being an artist is constantly pulling and pushing our focus and attention in other directions, to enable us to have the opportunities, gigs, and exhibitions to present and make our work. This juggling act can often have a detrimental outcome to an artist’s mental and physical health since this is not a sustainable way of working.
The myth of freedom is one of the most seductive fallacies about being an artist. But in practice, that freedom is frequently structured by unstable income, unpaid labour, project-based work and lack of benefits or long-term security.
Myth #3: Shiny New Tech Will Make You a Better Artist
Tools Can Help—But They Don’t Replace Vision
We have all been in that situation where we think that an expensive new tablet, stylus or new macro lens will make us achieve our dreams that much easier. Or we think this special brand of oil paint will make or break my career.
Now, I have, of course, fallen for this trap again and again, so this might be a “do as I say not as I do” situation. In reality, the tools don’t make us better visionaries. The talent and hard work it takes to maintain a practice is really what pushes our capacity as artists and creatives.
The Danger of Overvaluing Tech (and Undervaluing Skill)
The seductive equipment or supplies might help build confidence, or streamline a task, or equalise a technical playing field, but don’t over-value what a fancy piece of software or 3D printer can do for you. This overvaluation creates an underappreciation for the actual artistic skills and technical knowledge of being an artist as more and more sentiments simplify or belittle a photographer’s job.
These sentiments turn into common misconceptions like “Photographers just press a button,” or “The camera does all the work.” If that were true then the fanciest camera and lighting rig in the world would make the best art. We know this not to be true, and this idea discounts the years of experience, wisdom and knowledge that is acquired by understanding timing, editing, composition, direction, or even how sunlight moves and is shaped over time.
Take this truth to heart: There is no tool, technique or AI-generated software that can genuinely replace artistic vision.
Myth #4: Success Means Visibility (and Less Rejection)
Rejection Doesn’t End—It Repeats
And finally, the dreaded constant companion of all creatives: rejection and failure. It feels gut-wrenching to constantly apply for opportunities, exhibitions, awards or grants only to receive the classic “We regret to inform you…” email.
This aspect of our creative industry is present at no matter what stage of your career you are in. Competition for the minimal amount of opportunities remains constant even if you are an established, mid-career or emerging artist. And while it is persistent, rejection can be crushing. You feel completely invisible. Your confidence is shaken, you doubt your own skills and knowledge, and constantly compare yourselves to other artists or projects.
Unfortunately, this happens to every single artist (myself included) and I have no good advice to combat the stifling despair besides diving into a pint of matcha ice cream, watching reality tv and getting some therapy to process the feelings.
Most Artistic Labor Happens in Invisibility
When it comes to attention, our expectations of success focus on recognition: exhibitions, publications, awards. And we neglect to understand that most artistic labour happens in extended periods of invisibility. Projects often take years to produce and attain little external validation; plentiful applications go unanswered.
Recognition, when it comes, is often partial and temporary. The norm is not visibility—it’s obscurity punctuated by brief moments of attention.
Persistence as the Real Differentiator
As I look to more established artists who have maintained long careers with fresh and varied projects or perspectives, it seems to me that these celebrated artists are tenacious, wise, and persistently willing to take on more rejection than one could think they can handle. Perhaps it is a survival of the most persistent rather than the fittest that is necessary as a creative to succeed working in the industry.
What I Hope You Take from This—and How to Keep Going
Everyone loves the idea of the artist. The image is easy to hold: a figure moving freely through the world, guided by intuition, translating light into meaning, living a life shaped by vision rather than obligation. The artist, especially the photographer, is imagined as someone who notices, who frames, who captures—and creates deep meaning worth sharing or presenting to the world.
But the romanticisms about the experience of being an artist are rooted in the problematics of its shimmering aura. The deepest misconception is how the general public (or other artists themselves) romanticize the imagen of the artist while overlooking the staggering conditions required to sustain one.
Perhaps what we all need is to recall the difference between the romantic idea of “being an artist” and the actuality of “having an artistic practice.” The former is vague; who decides when you’re an artist? Many contemporary artists can be heard to quote “If you make art, then you are an artist.”
The latter strikes at the heart of the matter; to be a practicing artist begins to hint at the labor and persistence needed to create art as a profession. The myths about being an artist will likely persist; with a healthy dose of reality, so can you.
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