Caught between the longing for love
and the struggle for the legal tender.
Caught between the longing to create
and the struggle for the legal tender.
Say a prayer for the pretender.
Gimme the time and I can be a contender.

They say that artists need to throw caution to the wind and just go for it ~
Put your faith in your dream and give it all you got.
They say if you follow your dream the money will follow.
Yep ~ all of that is most likely true, but it ain't easy.
Shit ~ it's a bitch.

It's damn hard, especially if you're no longer a 20 something. When we're in our 20's we have a more naive life outlook and we do whatever we feel like doing. This is one of the best things about being young and we don't realize it until we hit our 40's. Ugh.

Once we hit the big 4-0, things begin to change and practicality tends to come to the forefront. So what happens if we're still trying to attain happiness through our art and hope to somehow make a living from it? It becomes more challenging (scary even) to follow that romantic conventional wisdom and give 100% to your art and hope that the money will just materialize. I suppose some might suggest that by this age we should have already attained a certain level of financial stability and should be able to devout our free time to our passion. Well.., it doesn't always work that way and "free time" isn't enough. For me it's always been a struggle to consistently make money, because all I really want to do is compose and record music. It's the struggle of my life and unfortunately has defined much of who I am up until this point.

Most people with an artistic bent tend to break and give into financial practicality, putting aside their art for the stability of a more traditional lifestyle. I certainly cannot blame them and actually wish I had that tendency. Unfortunately, I do not and find it maddening when I feel the stress of needing to make money and cannot spend time writing music.

If you don't create
You cannot function
And therefore cannot breathe

Back in the late 80's I became fascinated with Vincent Van Gogh and had a strangely powerful feeling of connection. I can honestly say it wasn't a romantic artistic emotional thing, it was instinctive. It was powerful and it coursed through my veins and drove me to the Detroit Institute of Arts where I stood in front of his self portrait while my insides churned. Yes ~ I have to admit, I made the cardinal sin and touched it. I had to. Just a quick, light finger-tip graze when no one was looking. I know, I know.., bad, bad Jay. But still.., it was that strong.

So what's the point of all this? Van Gogh was a pure artist. He had no control over his need to create and it cost him his life. It's my perspective that he was the most accurate description of the die-hard artist. Some might say he was a foolish, out of control, irresponsible romantic who gave too much to his art. Maybe that's true, maybe not. It was his life and he went about it as he did, even if he was epileptic, bi-polar, whatever. He was pure and no matter what, he stuck to his art.

Is that what We The Artists need to do? Maybe, but if it means we're so unhappy from not making money that we stick a gun in our gut, then clearly the answer is no. Still ~ we are who we are and for some of us, being creative is a genuine need and the most difficult reality is, it takes a full-time effort to create art properly. If we don't give ourselves close to 100%, than for most of us it means we don't get it right. We don't nail it. We don't knock out that magical masterpiece. Maybe we feel it within, perhaps we taste it, maybe we even give birth to magical masterpiece junior, but it's unlikely we'll achieve creative nirvana unless we have the time to devout ourselves to what we NEED. Artistic creation is a fickle thing and doesn't just happen when you schedule the time for it. We need to have enough time so that we have more chance at connecting to the artistic energy wave and riding the inspiration.

So my question is, how do we generate enough money to live well enough so that we can invest the majority of our time being creative fools? Comments below much appreciated!