While the feeling of just not having the energy can be real, it can also be an excuse. However, be careful: if your job isn’t all that intense but nonetheless you find yourself preferring Netflix and sleep in the evenings, you should be asking yourself some deeper questions about your dedication to your art. If you have a day job that you come home from completely drained and need the weekend to recover from, this isn’t a functional life situation for an artist. To make things more complicated, it’s not just time you’re looking for - it’s quality time. If you’re working eight-hour days, five days a week, this will probably leave you searching for the hours in your schedule to dedicate to your craft. The most significant drawback of having a day job is the sacrifice of time. It can take years of exploration to find one that accommodates a creative life. The trick is finding a day job that isn’t a soul-sucker - and this is no small feat. Of course, not all day jobs breathe life into your being, and some can in fact do the opposite. Colombian synthesist Lucrecia Dalt’s background as a geologist and civil engineer laid the conceptual framework for her 2018 LP Anticlines. Caribou, for instance, began as a professor of Mathematics before becoming known for his music.

The sciences can lend themselves particularly well to this, and even feed into one’s creative practice. Many artists and musicians enjoy the benefit of a day job that deepens their knowledge and perspective of the world from a lens beyond their creative craft. Ask yourself: “Am I making my art with regard to financial outcome?” If so, ask yourself how nice it might feel if money weren’t on your mind while you’re in the studio. The freedom to have no dependency on whether your work is a “success” can be the most empowering condition for a healthy creative flow. The state of play is the state from which the best work is often made. A day job or commercial freelance gig can provide a healthy separation between creativity and finances while restoring a playful sense of wonder to your creative process. Some of these are purely for art’s sake, and others are for money. The separation between creativity and financesĪrtists living balanced, healthy, productive, and sustainable lives often maintain a variety of projects. On a psychological level, it erodes at the joy of the creative process and can produce tremendous stress. Will it “succeed?” Will it “perform” well? In other words, will it pay the bills? However necessary it may be for survival, defining success under these terms can become dangerous territory. You might find yourself caring more about what others will think of your work. Gradually, the sense of playfulness with which you began creating slips away. If this has been you, you may have noticed that something curious happens when you’re depending on your art for financial sustenance.

When your art is the day jobįirst, let’s examine the scenario of someone who subsists entirely from their art. However, having a day job doesn’t make you less of an artist, and in fact, contrary to popular belief, it can play a liberating role in one’s life as an artist. This might come as no surprise: most artists aspire to make a living from their art alone. One of the most common perceptions of failure for musicians is “having to get a day job.”

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