People can’t help but ask me, Is art your hobby? No, I wanted to say yes. But yes, kind of.
The real answer is that I don’t know either. While I have a full-time job that isn’t related to my art, I still think of myself as an artist. It is my passion, my hobby, and my side hustle, but also none of those, to be quite fair.
So, is art my hobby?
When I hear it, I flinch. Don’t get me wrong; I value hobbies. I am all about the things that we love and don’t stress over the way we stress about our careers. But my relationship with my art is way different.
I would bake, watch the sunset, and walk around as a hobby, but art is draining. It’s a mental state, a meditative process, and a big part of my soul goes into it.
I’m not here to complain about my complex relationship with my art and creative endeavors, but I want to specify what a hobby means to each and every one of us.
If I can call art one thing, it would be an obsessive passion
An obsessive passion is when our passions and identities are exactly the same. In other words, that passion is all that we are. And I know it sounds kind of extreme, but it is not.
Extreme love for a passion is when ambitious people passionately pursue their goals while not attending to their other needs.
In my case, it’s a hobby-turned-passion. However, I’m sure I have tapped into extremism here and there (I chose to make art I cared about at my own expense).
And it is flitting my mind to when someone said, “But it’s your passion.”, “Don’t you just love what you do”?
Right now, those comments sound like excuses for gaslighting one’s efforts and love for their craft. And it is probably an excuse that is also used to underpay creative jobs and exploit creative people.
Is art my career?
I often hear the phrase, If you really loved your work, it wouldn’t feel like work at all.
And I know that many of us have fallen into that trap. You’ve done something you loved for free just because you’re a beginner, hoping that the experience will someday pay off.
But then you grow up and realize that doing something as a career, no matter if you’re a beginner or an expert, demands that you respect the craft. You can’t work for free. But your passion propels you to take on work you care about.
Why don’t I become a full-time artist then?
If art isn’t my primary source of income, why wouldn’t I consider making it so and dedicate forty hours of my week to it?
Or should I just quit art since it’s making me feel overworked and on a constant marathon?
Since I was old enough to work, I’ve never only had one job, and since I started painting, I’ve never only been an artist. But I have always fantasized about it. I was used to painting on the side of whatever combination of jobs I had, whether it was a nonprofit, a corporate job, a freelance hustle, etc.
Art was present in every job I ever had, and none of them were necessarily directly related to my art. I am typing this article to my blog that I do “on the side”, and I don’t know how to explain to you that whatever I will be doing at a moment, it feels like the center.
When I am typing these articles, I am a creativity and art blogger. When I am painting, I am an artist. And when I am in my office, I am a project manager for creative events and digital communications.
If I am doing it on the side, is art a hobby? Or is it the glue holding pieces of my identity together?
To define is to limit
Oscar Wilde
Conclusion
I don’t know why I wrote this article. Maybe to reassure you and me that we don’t have to conform to a social “frame” of what an adult should be doing with their life. Or maybe because I know so many creatives who create alongside other jobs, dreams, responsibilities, etc. And that the hobby-job binary may be the new norm. Art should never be so unstable that we need another job to support it. But having another job doesn’t make you less of an artist.
Enjoy creating <3
