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When does an aspiring artist/ musician/ whatever know when to stop?

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I’m in a ruminating mood, which might explain my odd question.

I’ve been known to describe myself as a failed artist, because I’m of a vaguely creative bent and have at various times aspired to various artistic or musical endeavours which have come to nothing.

Whenever anyone asks a successful creative person for advice, the cliché often trotted out is ‘never give up’. Because, they say, ‘I never gave up. If I had given up I would never have succeeded. So if you never give up, you’ll succeed one day. Just like me.’

Logic says that’s a flawed argument. Why not ask the failed artists rather than the successful ones? ‘You’ve spent your life trying to be a pop star and never succeeded but never given up. Have you wasted your life? Discuss.’

So how do you know when to give up? Any fellow failed artists who gave up and are happy they did? Or any that learned to live with creative pursuits without success or reward?

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Comments

  1. Ageing actors-who’ve-never-quite-made-it are an interesting breed. I know several, all of them graduates of good drama schools in the early 80s, and as their showreels become more dated, so their belief in ‘the call’ somehow becomes stronger. Unlike with aspiring musicians, though, where there’re live performances and recordings to present to anyone who’s passing, there’s not a lot, other than anecdotes, that they can muster up.
    Whilst I’d like to believe that ‘the call’ can be received at any stage of life, I do wonder whether natural selection is at work. When I have seen a performance, usually in a small theatre, by any of the above, it’s been pretty poor.

  2. It’s a very interesting question, Arthur. And an interesting answer, Bazza. I recall seeing a cartoon in a newspaper – two out of work actors, one saying to the other, ‘I’m working on a book’, the other replying, ‘Neither am I’.

    I think advice can only be given on a case by case basis. Acting wise, Olivia Colman is a great modern example of someone who had whole years without a single acting job and then suddenly she’s in everything. But clearly, she has talent. There may well be hundreds of mediocre or even terrible actors deluding themselves that ‘If it happened for Oliviia, it can only be a matter of time for me’.

    The problem is that artistic pursuits (like acting and music) can seem to be vocational to some people – they genuinely feel it’s their calling. The other side of that coin is market forces. Is there or will there ever be a demand for the particular artistry they wish to offer on a professional basis?

    Complicating the above, crap art can become a viable profession for some (with business skills or with people around them with such skills) and great art can be totally un-monetise-able for others. Life doesn’t owe anyone a living, no matter how artistically great they may be or believe themselves to be.

    It’s a moot point at the moment, for I know a couple of people who seem to fit into this topic. One is an ageing garage band bandleader/songwriter (good at what he does, not without merit artistically, IMO) who has an album recorded, which he seems utterly incapable of ‘getting out there’ because he’s simply useless at ‘real life’. The other is a visual artist who has been financially very successful in the past, is incredibly well-versed in art history and the art world – an artist to his core – but whose muse has taken him in ever more ‘unsellable’, primitive art directions in recent years. Neither are making money at the moment.

  3. If one is pursuing what brings one pleasure, and fulfils a personal need and one doesn’t harbour preposterous, unrealistic ambitions then why stop? Success takes many forms and it’s not always measured by monetary reward or fame.
    It helps if one is a right stubborn bugger though I must admit.

  5. I have a variation, Arthur. What if you’ve never even tried?! Having denied myself artistically for most of my life (which started out being recognised as a musical prodigy), I’ve now reached an age where I can’t go on without throw my lot in with my muse and artistic ‘gifts’ such as they are. I was so scared of failure climbing the only mountain I’ve ever cared about (music) that I ended up climbing several other mountains I couldn’t give a damn about but which were possibly just as hard. Now at the grand old age of X, I know it’s the only thing I care about. And I’ll die a very unhappy man if I don’t at least try.

    I have to salute you for keeping going. Much braver than me. Is there a Plan B?

  6. A friend of mine has eked out a living as a musician for almost 20 years, with a small following and no music industry support. He is singleminded in that he offers the music he wants to create with no concession to what might make him money, or famous. Over the years he’s resisted or frustrated all attempts to turn him into a star. Occasionally his genuine talent breaks through all his attempts to suppress it, like the time a cover of one of his songs went to number one in France. He just does what he does and so far people have given him enough money so he can keep on doing it.

    At the other extreme, there’s the workshy artists who rely on state aid to keep churning out mediocre merchandise. It’s either self funding, or it’s an after-work hobby. If you’re good enough, you’ll get an income. If you’re not, get a job.

    • If I’ve got the right chap – and please correct me if I haven’t @chiz * – your mate does have real talent though, doesn’t he? And I imagine he will end his days having achieved much, even if he may not have become financially rich.

      A number one song by a bloke who once had Jimi Hendrix as his support act! Tours with Elvis Costello, Suzanne Vega and others! A CD in my collection! The Guardian called him “unmissable… one of Britain’s best.”! Lots of vids on YouTube!

      Funnily enough, I’m currently waiting for his book to be delivered . . . “There was a time when people swore I’d be the next big thing. It took ten years of hard work and dedication but I finally proved them all wrong . . . “. I hope it’s as good as it sounds.

      He deserves wider exposure* and The Afterword is the place to do it. Here’s the No 1 song – what a great video (Johnny Hallyday’s hit version is called 20 Ans, also on YouTube):

      (* Pretty sure this is the right chap but still deserves wider recognition if not.)

      • That’s the fella. He is genuinely unconcerned about making money out of music, which is kind of great, and bloody annoying if like me you want more people to hear his songs.

  7. Talent is useful, but a lot of very talented people never make it. Why not? A lot of reasons, but you also need an impervious skin and an unbreakable determination to just carry on regardless of rejection, belittlement and abject scorn. Bob Dylan is a case in point. He was rejected, ridiculed and for several years just wasn’t very good. But this was a man who was prepared to sleep on floors for years, practise, practise, prcatise and even waded through a swamp to visit his hero Woody Guthrie. Thick skinned doesn’t begin to cover it. I would have given up years before.

    I have known two professional actors in my time. I was at college with Alex Jennings (recently played Alan Bennett in Lady With A Van), whose talent and work ethic was blindingly obvious at the time. No surprise that he made it, though I know he struggled to get parts in the early years. Everyone does. The other actor I knew I won’t name. She was a very competent actress and toured in rep and appeared on TV occasionally for about 15 years. But it was always quite small parts and between roles she was signing on, often for months at a time. Eventually she just gave up and got a “regular” job. She did nothing wrong; it just wasn’t to be.

    I suspect that hugely successful Artists (note capitalisation) must have a unique and recognisable style of their own. and a competitive streak. A lot of probably equally talented artists make a good living in commercial graphic design. I would regard success in many ways. I knew someone who made a decent living painting portraits of peoples’ pets. It’s all relative.

    • In Hepworth’s 1971 book he makes the good point that bedsit singer-songwriters need the sensitivity to write the songs, but also a thick enough skin to go out and sing them to what may an uninterested or even hostile audience. It’s an uncommon combination.

  8. I gave up on the idea of being any kind of writer at the age of thirty when I realised that… the world is absolutely full of bloody writers. Seriously, there must be fifty writers for every reader.

    In the digital age one is crushingly aware that another voice, and therefore more words in the world is definitely not what is needed. What is needed is for more people to say less.

    So here I am, with my silly little gnomic comments. Enjoy 🙂

  9. In response to the original post- I think you know when the time has come to give up or move on. It could be the first gig away from home in your teenage band where no one claps, the fiftieth rejection letter or the threat of the bailiffs arriving that week.
    If you can continue to fund yourself to make music, write or paint then I guess carry on. I have a friend who keeps going whilst all around him have proper jobs. Some days I feel proud (or jealous) of him for sticking with it for so many years. Other times I don’t understand why he hasn’t grown up and got a proper job. I suspect he may question that himself occasionally too.

    • Yes you’re right. I really must get myself a proper badly paid, zero hours, pointless, soul destroying proper job instead of spending ten hours a day striving to make a living and contributing to society doing the one thing I’m even moderately good at.

      • Genuine question – have you ever had a ‘proper’ job?

        It IS soul destroying. (I think my original post was inspired by a particularly stressful day in the holy black hell of insurance dispute negotiations). I suppose the regular pay cheque makes it all worthwhile, to a point.

        • Yes I’ve earned my living working in bookshops and pubs. I’ve worked designing textiles, ceramics, vehicle liveries and as a graphic designer. I’ve worked on building sites, swept the streets, emptied bins and worked down sewers. I’ve stacked shelves in supermarkets and cleaned offices.
          After spending fifteen years caring for my elderly parents and my ailing wife I was left in my late fifties after their departing this veil of tears with the stark choice of trying to secure yet another crap job whilst painting in my spare time or saying sod that and devoting my full attention to my work and giving it my all.
          I chose the latter.
          I don’t regret it.
          I pay my way.

    • I’m with Pencil in this. Sometimes – to flip the OP on its head – one has to realise the right time to LEAVE the ‘proper job’ world and do your own thing. it really is down to individual circumstances, gut feelings, weighing up your own happiness, the hand you’ve got, etc etc. There can’t be a text book.

      Pencil’s circumstances, described above, are way more existential than the ones I faced in 2008-11 (though mine felt pretty visceral at the time in their own way). I just found myself in a spiral of mediocity working for a public sector organisation. I had been self-employed, writing for newspapers and doing some other things from 1994-2001, and had a feeling at that point that I should get a 9-5 – it seemed like a right time to change my circumstances for various reasons. But I became trapped in mediocrity, at the bottom rung of mediocrity, increasingly frustrated, losing my confidence and unable to get away. Eventually my substantive post began to wither – but being the public sector I could have continued doing almost nothing, barely seeing anyone else from one day to another for most of the year, year in year out, for decades.

      Long story short: I took voluntary redundancy at Christmas 2011, wrote three books, made an album, got a PhD in the next 3 1/2 years, started doing academic proofreading, continuing to be involved in archive music releases and the careers/projects of a couple of current artists, another album coming Feb/March, and having just done a tax return I was pleasantly surprised to find that I now earn more than I ever did as a bottom-run salaried admin person.

      So, for me, giving up a job at 43 was exactly the right thing to do. My wellbeing is a hundred times improved. And I never again have to put up with workplace bullies and grinding bureacracy. It worked for me, with my circumstances and my limited skills – because I was able to target them in a way that adds up to a living. It may or may not be the same for others, but – I suspect like Pencil – you reach a point in life where you just don’t want to put up with the crap any more, and you know that to, essentially, insulate yourself as much as possible from it is the best thing to do. Onwards…

      • Great story, thanks for sharing. I remember some of your comments on the old site about your work troubles, Colin, so good to know you found an escape.

        Your comments strike a chord with me even more as I’m 43 now….

        • Oh, it was really terrible at the time, Arthur. I think the universal message is that sometimes you can stay toop long in an ‘easy’ but unsatisfying salaried job until it reaches the point that you become trapped because your confidence goes or your frustration comes through in interviews for other posts… which only makes the next ‘escape interview’ even tougher… a self-fulfilling cycle, I suppose.

          Actually, during the last year (2010) I got a transfer to another place – from a largely empty room to a room that felt like a 1970s primary school, with ineffective senior people and a really nasty, shouty old hag in between them and half a dozen low-level people – all trapped in the mediocity in their own way. In a way, that probably helped because one starts thinking, ‘I’m an adult, I’m not an idiot… why on earth would I want to stay in this bizarre, pointless, unpleasant environment? Sweeping roads would be more noble than this.’ It was like a wake up call. And I woke up.

          • Hope you don’t mind me probing, but I have two questions…

            Didn’t you worry about your financial commitments when you walked away from a salaried job? (Mortgage? Kids?)

            Were you able to put your previous experience and contacts to good use when you relaunched yourself in the creative world… Or were you starting from scratch again?

            I left a fairly low rung but stable, salaried job to go to Glasgow art school at the age of 31, but I only lasted two years. The guilt of not contributing to the household income while indulging in what seemed like a hopelessly narcissistic pursuit just got too much for me, so I fled with my tail between my legs back to the safety of the financial customer service industries.

            • I’ve done it twice. In 1994 I walked away from a permanent contract ‘continental shift pattern’ (alternating 12-hour days/nights) go-nowhere job in a bleak industrial estate outside Belfast. It was the first permanent job I’d had since graduating in 1989 (various crappy temp jobs in between). I stuck it for a year but it was affecting my health/well-being. I used the permanent contract to buy a house then resigned. I paid a mortgage (not always on time), living alone, for the next few years based on freelance writing and a bit of part-time government survey interviewing.

              I got married in 1999, worked on a book for a year, then decided the time was right to move into the 9-5 world (my decision – partly to fit into Mrs H’s lifestyle, partly because it felt like time for a change).

              The principle of changing direction may have been right, but the actual direction I went in/organisation/sector was probably wrong.

              10 years later – having tried many ways to improve my position (external courses/qualifications, unpaid leave to do voluntary work, other stuff aimed at improving self-esteem) – I accepted a voluntary redundancy. Mrs H was 100% with me. I’d been miserable for years – why not lance the boil? I got enough money not to have to worry about anything for a few months and, after lying in a darkened room (metaphorically) for a couple of weeks, decided to see if I could still write a book. It turned out I could. I went looking for a literary agent and publisher after 8 months, when the confidence had returned, and haven’t looked back.

              I had a cash-flow crisis in October 2014 and simply did 9 weeks of casual clerical work at a local university (and met some great people – plus a couple of a**es, as per every workplace in my experience), so I had that extra string to my bow/ace up my sleeve – which is something I’d advise others wanting to pursue creativity as an occupation.

              I accepted a couple of further casual clerical university gigs (for 2 weeks each) in October 2015 and October 2016 (just passed) – I didn’t need the money on those occasions, but figured it’s good to do this kind of thing once in a while to (a) meet new people, and (b) prove that I *can* work in that environment if I need to, and (c) remind myself that, bar an ‘admin holiday’ every so often, I don’t want to ever again!

              Buying a house in 1993, at 25, was a good move. Mrs H and I sold up, pooled resources and bought one together in 1999. It’s been a team effort ever since.

              As for contacts, I guess having a few was helpful, but I didn’t go back into hustling for newspaper/magazine writing. It’s strictly books, archive CD projects with reissue labels (projects with varying levels of my involvement bubbling away with Hux, RPM, Earth Vinyl, Cherry Red and Dusk Fire at the moment) and the very occasional magazine/paper piece if I’m asked – I generally don’t go looking.

              I had to give a lecture this week, actually, on being an author to a bunch of university music students. I was able to show that in the 2015-16 tax year roughly 60% of my income came from writing, roughly 35% from proofreading and roughly 5% from music copyrights. With six months of the next tax year already gone, I can see that my income will rise and the balance will change a bit, with perhaps 40% from writing, 50% from proofreading and 10% from music – or something along those lines.

              I’m not sure how useful that is to other people, but perhaps the message is to have two or three income streams/a bit of diversity in what you do.

              I’m tinkering with a couple more book ideas at the moment, but they are probably spare-time projects, not ones I can imagine making much money. It’s new territory for me to approach books like that, and I’m not sure it’s working just at the moment – I find it hard to actively move away from ‘economic activity’ – be it CD projects or academic proofreading – to ‘speculative activity’ in working hours, while in spare time I often prefer to do other things. But I feel that I *should* be working on more musical history books, to some extent. So we’ll see how it works out.

              • Wow. A million thanks for that massive answer. I have no further questions. You passed the interview. When can you start?

                I think your lifestyle is enviable. I don’t see myself ever doing something as drastic as walking away from the 9-5, but it’s great to hear of someone that has, successfully.

                If I were to analyse your success, I’d say (talent aside) it’s a mixture of confidence in yourself and a focus on what you want to do. You want to make music and write about music. Many of us have neither confidence or focus!

                Of course, here’s where you reveal that in the middle of all that you spent a summer in New York trying to make it as a dancer on Broadway….

  10. In my role as a precariously employed person on the lower rungs of media, I can say that I do wonder myself. I have worked on the fringes of the properly creative world, without necessarily being properly creative myself.

    But I can say this. I can pay the morgage, feed the family (alongside my better paid wife) and I am not miserable as sin, as I was when I had jobs. What I do is a challenge but a good challenge and one that leaves me not feeling hollow inside.

    Not feeling hollow inside is, in many ways, it’s own reward.

    • Well said.

      I’ve always taken the view that if a person has a partner / a family and declares themselves an artist, their first responsibility is to the partner / family.

      If, without a patron, your art doesn’t enable you to pay the mortgage / rent and also give your loved ones a great life, then what you have is a hobby.

  11. After many years in a soul destroying job that used to be vaguely enjoyable, but which now leaves me feeling hollow inside just about every day, I can only conclude that years spent chasing an alternative dream based on a modicum of talent is probably a far more rewarding option. I’ve always harboured the forlorn hope that I had a mysterious undiscovered ability waiting to be revealed, but sadly time has so far proven this not to be the case. For anyone chasing elusive rainbows I would heartily encourage them to stick with it.

  12. I have a modest amount of musical and literary talent, but definitely not enough of either to build any kind of professional life on. Besides, having worked as a publisher most of my life, I’ve seen far too many good books disappear without trace to want to add to them. The last thing the world needs is books written by someone who’s not convinced he ought to be writing them. Those who can, do; those who can’t, become publishers, to adapt a phrase.

  13. A lot of the discussion above relates to creative pursuits as yr full time job.

    I make a bit of music, but I realised very early on that I wasn’t cut out for the life of a jobbing muso and the kind of music I want to make isn’t ever going to earn me a living. Fortunately I enjoy my day job and I like to make music by night so it works out OK for me. I think I’m learning and making better stuff the longer I stick at it, we’ve sold a few CDs and LPs and I’m happy with that and see no reason to stop as long as myself and my bandmate are enjoying ourselves! We’ve just finished an LP which we thoroughly enjoyed making and are hugely proud of -if we sell a few copies of that and get a few little gigs out of it I’ll be made up. To quote all indie bands circa 1991 interviewed in NME – “we make the music we want to make and anything else is a bonus” – it’s kind of true!

      • If it’s any consolation, DuCool and I have seen the late, great Jackie Leven play to five men and a dog. Needless to say he was marvelous.

        And yet there are artists without a jot of his talent playing to packed football stadiums.

        There are far too many times that I’ve looked around a half-empty room at a very fine gig and pondered why this was the case.

        • It’s only pointless Arthur if we fail to imbue it with meaning and that meaning has to come from inside us. It can’t be found from the reflection of ourselves we see in the eyes of others. That road will always lead to disillusionment. If pursuing what makes you happy becomes a burden because it’s dependant on the approval of others then that is a sorry state of affairs. Life should be full of wonder and discovery whatever age we are and despite whatever demands our lives place upon us. Life is short. Never stop learning, never stop reaching out.

  15. Great thread on an interesting topic.

    I’ve got a ‘proper’ job, but I also have a creative side which needs an outlet. If I could make money from that, I’d be delighted; if I can’t make money from it, I’ll do it anyway.

    The real ‘reward’ is the process itself and what that does for your soul.

  16. Lots of great responses here, so thank you all. I sense a lot of amateur writers and musicians among you, which is heartening.

    I’ve been pondering what people are saying about the satisfaction of just doing it (whatever ‘it’ may be) for yourself. I think that’s where my problem lies – (the cliché, psychologically speaking, would be to blame my catholic upbringing) – it just feels too self-indulgent.

  17. What a superb thread with lots of thoughtful, heartfelt posts! I think it’s the best thread since the return from Facebook.

    I’m in awe of creative people. My day job is ‘scientific’, mainly involving problem-solving. Sometimes, the solutions are ‘creative’ but not often. I love nothing more than coming home after a hard day’s work and listening to music (I should post on the perfect thread). However, I cannot sing or play a note. I have lots of pictures on the walls, including pencilsqueezers, and they bring me such joy, but I’ve never been able to draw or paint myself.

    This blog is packed with talent. My advice is to do whatever brings you pleasure. It sounds as though many of you need that creative outlet. If you can make money from it, very well done indeed.

    When I retire, which isn’t too far away now, I intend to learn the piano. I’ll probably approach it as though it is a mathematical conundrum. Watch out!

    And, @Moose-the-Moose. Write that F*cking book. I’ll buy it.

  18. As someone who’s been playing, writing and making a living from music for the last 40 years (apart from a couple of spells as a postman and on the dole) there’s so much here I could comment on. Not really sure where to start. However I do think persistence is important, and also all the successful musicians/composers/songwriters I’m aware of have one thing in common – blatant, resolute ambition. Which means, ultimately, succeeding in music to the detriment of family. I’ve always put family first, and people think I’ve managed it well, but it’s mainly due to a sympathetic partner who comes from a musical family.

    I’m going through a thing now of – will I keep going? CAN I keep going? I’m fortunate enough to have a job where I play the piano for a living in a situation that I enjoy, but it’s not the height of my creative ambition, that’s other projects – my own band, my solo piano stuff – which I keep putting out into the world with lots of support and lovely reviews and so on but no return – ie bookings!

    I’m probably going to give my creative stuff another year and then pursue academia on a totally unrelated subject

    My two euros worth…

  19. Aren’t these glorious testimonies to determination over degradation? A theme is often how the daily grind is and does, especially in the public sector. Why is it that the areas supposedly devoted to enhancing the life, supposedly, of the rest of us, through health, education, social work, law enforcement etc are such wretched, wretched organisations to work within. I always point this out to the steady flow of such individuals from said sectors, in front of me with stress related symptoms, burn-out, bullying, and there are so very, very many. I am lucky, I guess, drifting on the sidelines of the NHS: GPs are self-employed, bizarrely, a quirk of Bevins set-up of the NHS, yes, the mouths stuffed with gold quote, tho’ more often tin these days. But it means I can, up to a point, retain the autonomy all of us need to some extent, say what I like and speak my mind against the idiots elsewhere in the system. It may have near wiped me out half a decade ago, but it’s what I do and whilst I am allowed to, and can, I’m currently glad I do. Yes, I dream of scribbling away and making my mint, but my artistic talents are as Tiggs. Hey-ho…..

  20. I don’t think it matters if what you do is a hobby or not. If memory serves only five per cent of published writers make their living that way. They’re teaching, lecturing or ghosting, and writing novels in their spare time.

    Besides which, when it comes to music and writing I’m a bit suspicious of people who claim they need to do it full-time. It feels as though the gesture is king. The ‘being’ a writer or musician is more important than doing it. Then you get those who say, “I’d love to write a novel if only I had [insert excuse here].” They’re just using the excuse to make up for a lack of desire.

    • Agree – no one needs to be full time. Thats just affectation. There’s enough hours in the day to make an economic contribution as well as an artistic one. If your stuff sells, fair enough, but if you can’t pay the bills, do a shift at Sainsbury’s or something.

      • Many artists do work at other things apart from their practice. I know I did during the years prior to taking up my role as a carer. I now find myself alone in the world, I have no commitments to others and there is little I desire from life materially beyond the basics. I don’t have a mortgage or a car. It’s been sixteen years since I last took a holiday and feel no need of one. I’m happy to just paint, see my friends when I can and get on with whatever challenges life throws at me.
        Most days I have little or no money beyond what I need to live. That’ll do.

        • It’s great that you are able to make a living from your talent alone, but I’m sure there are many others who think us desk-drones should support their lifestyle because they’re ‘an artist’. In fact I know some of them!

          • Then they should as you point out and as the op suggests re-think their priorities. At the very least they should find some way to legally pay their bills.
            One has to cut ones suit according to ones cloth. That becomes increasingly difficult to accomplish if one has unrealistic expectations of material rewards. I don’t. Perhaps they do.

    • Here’s some figures, Les, that I used a couple of days ago in that lecture I mentioned above:

      What does an author earn?

      • The Authors’ Licensing & Collecting Society – from which I receive a few hundred pounds every year, apparently from people in universities photocopying my stuff – carried out a survey in 2015
      • The top 10% of professional authors (£60,000+ pa) earned 58% of all the money made by professional authors in 2013
      • The top 1%, who are earning more than £450,000pa, take 23% of all earnings.
      • The bottom 50% of authors earned less than £10,500
      • 17% of all writers did not earn anything at all during 2013, and yet almost all of these authors had published a work every year from 2010 to 2013
      • The median earnings of a professional author, defined as someone who spends more than half their working life on self-employed writing, were £11,000, down 29% in real terms on 2005 and less than the minimum wage

      So, being an author is similar to being an artist, an actor, or a musician – you’re passionate about what you do, you try and make it work, and sometimes it just about does.

      • Thanks Colin. That was really interesting.

        I wonder how the breakdown of the figures would compare if you did them for musicians, actors, artists, sculptors, dancers etc I suspect that once again the top 10% would be earning at least 58% of the total, if not more.

        I have sometimes thought, particularly meeting young people with talent (to paraphrase the OP):

        At what point, if any, should an aspiring artist/ musician/ whatever give up their day job?

        Hang onto that job at Sainsbury and do not let your hod carrying skills go too rusty!

  21. There are quite a few actors who do what I do (Tour guide/manager). They still get to perform in front of an audience and are quite often adored for it.
    Like acting, it’s a freelance profession and there are lean times. In my younger days, I’d sign on with Manpower doing manual work, where my workmates were often actors & musicians.
    I did ten years of proper work and hated every minute. When I stumbled into this, gave up security and a “future”, I felt liberated. I eventually met a woman who has a similar outlook on life. We don’t have kids or a mortgage so we don’t need lots of dough. I may have to keep working until I drop (or am dropped) but I’ve done pretty much what I wanted all my life and it’s not worth worrying about what might be around the corner.

    • That’s the spirit, Wayf. The legendary Andy Irvine did a couple of months with Manpower in the middle 60s when he moved to England for a while to chisel around on the folk scene. He’d been an actor in London circa 1960-62, working two years for the BBC repertory company – a safe but dull gig for actors in tose days. He went to Dublin in that operiod and got fired up by traditional music and the beginnings of the ‘ballad boom’, so quit the BBC Rep and hung around O’Donoghue’s pub for a couple of years with the people who became the Dubliners and Sweeney’s Men, having decided he didn’t like hanging around Neary’s with the Dublin acting fraternity.

      It’s fair to say that even in Sweeney’s Men – now legendary – the members were supported by secretarial girlfriends. But they were all doing the *right* thing. They were where they had to be. Figuring out where one *should* be, what one *should* be doing is the big question, to get back to the OP. And there’s no magic way of doing it. Self-belief and self-delusion are separated by a very narrow, invisible thread!

      Here’s Andy with the story of his move from the safe job (!) world of acting to folk music, and a great anecdote beforehand:

  22. A while back, I posted this recent clip of Mardl Boehm (in his cunning alter-ego Del Bromham), in a discussion about Stray – one of those acts often mentioned around here but never seen – and Johnny C remarked that it was sad, that Del was doing his thing, was good at guitar playing, but that no one was listening to him, punters milling about and going off into the beer garden. Actually, to me it looks like Mardl is comfortable in his own skin. I’ve no idea if he has a day job or is retired or if he still plays music for a living, or as a part-time thing. But whatever it is, he looks like someone who’s accepted that he’s never got above the second or third division but still likes to play music and if anyone wants to listen, fair enough, likewise, feel free to drift off into the beer garden. I wouldn’t for a moment advise Mardl to ‘stop’, though one’s intitial instinct might be to say, ‘The game’s over, Mardl, slip away quietly and preserve your dignity…’

  23. This is an interesting one – suggesting a career-death situation, but maybe not what it seems. A year or so back David Van Day – a man with, in my view, limited talent who through self-belief/force of personality has stretched it into some kind of a career for over 40 years, with a fair number of hits to his name – was criticised for giving performances in care homes. I think the suggestion was that his career had effectively run out, and this was an ignominious pursuit.

    But actually, I think Dave and his partner Sue have decent motives about those sort of shows. I mean, their act is probably something we’d run a mile from (as seen in this local news clip of their first gig), but underneath the hubris there’s honour, I think. On a purely artistic level, are there any among us who wouldn’t tell Dave, ‘Look mate, just knock it on the head’? Yet, if he’s bringing pleasure to people wanting a singalong at boozy village fetes and in care homes, then he’s still contributing to the happiness of people, isn’t he? Good luck to him…

    First gig:

    Talking about the care homes thing:

    • That’s interesting, Colin. When I was at school, there was an English teacher who also sang folk songs. Years later, I found out that he was well known on the Sussex folk scene.
      He eventually gave up teaching to make a go of music and he’s been dodging along happily ever since, doing all kinds of things, including performing at the care home where my mum, who had alzheimers, saw out her last few years.
      A quick Google tells me that he is still running the Brighton acoustic sessions – a monthly roots & folk get together. I never forgot that he gave up a career to do what made him happy.

  24. I suppose the answer is why they run out of the energy to create. Like others here I do music stuff and have no prospect of more than a handful of people showing any interest in it at all , but I think people like me do it because they enjoy it and it satisfies a creative itch. It leads on to the question of what is an artist – it reminds me of a discussion I heard with the critic Brian Sewell. He was asked apropos some modern art installation involving a pile of bricks, whether anyone could make pile of bricks and it be considered as art. Sewell’s response was no, not if they have not declared themselves an artist. Can you be an artist if no one likes what you do? History suggests you can. Plenty of artists only became recognised years later. So another answer to the OP might be “when they want to”.

    • That’s a great comment from Brian Sewell. It’s obvious when you think about it – you need the intention to be there for something to be art.

      That’s why children’s pictures are never art. (And I say that as a parent).

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