Poll: Would you rather be successful ARTISTICALLY or FINANCIALLY?

In My Humble Opinion
1

(Because I haven’t started a pointless poll in a while…)

Think, if you will, of your favorite work of art in whatever field you work in. If you’re a writer, consider the short story, novel, or poem that moves you the most, that touches you most deeply, that comes to mind when you try to explain to someone why you wish to be a writer. This should be the work of a person who, if you met, you’d be speechless with admiration for, who’d you’d be inclined to simply thank for touching your life through his or her work; the work of a person’s killing you softly with his song. If you work in a different discipline–painting, music, whatever–pick whatever the equivalent for you is.

Got one in mind? (For me, as a writer, it’s C.S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces.) Good.

Now think of a work in the same discipline that you hate as passionately as you love the first one you chose, but which is enormously successful. The author of this work makes obscene amounts of money, but also makes you embarrassed to be in the same profession (or to aspire to be in the same profession) as him or her.

Got one in mind? (For me, it’s anything by Dan Brown.) Good.

Lastly, think of whatever novel, poem, painting, script, etc. you have put the most effort into but not finished or been able to have published or produced.

Got all that?

Now, imagine you’re visited by whichever muse rules your particular field. She convinces you of her bona fides and her utter sincerity: whatever she says she means literally, and she won’t offer you anything with a hidden barb in the tail. She goes on to say that she’s she’s looked over your unpublished novel/unproduced script/unperformed song. etc., and she thinks you have great artistic talent. There is a sizable audience, she says, who will be as greatly affected by your work-in-progress as you are by the first item you picked–but not enough to make you a rich man. If you wish, she can not only provide you with a patron who will give you the leisure to finish your work, but also with the inspiration to transform the book/painting/etc. in your head into reality just as you imagine it; and she’ll can lead you to the best possible persons to help you distribute it. If you choose this option, you’ll achieve some modest financial success from the work; let’s say you’ll clear $100K a year (with increases for inflation) for the rest of your life. But your work will be taught in schools, critics will cite you as a genuine talent, and from time to time you’ll get letters from people who tell you how greatly you’ve affected them; and in time younger artists will model themselves on you.

That’s option 1. Option two, the muse tells you, is for her to help you change the work to be more financially viable. If you choose this option, you’ll produce a blockbuster of mammoth proportions; you’ll become a millionaire not merely from the work itself but from its adaptations to other media. But all the work you produce henceforth will be of the sort you hate the way I hate The DaVinci Code; not only will you be unable to PUBLISH the sort of things you like, you’ll also be unable to CREATE it for your own pleasure any longer.

Which option would you choose?

2

If it were one decision for my entire life , I would choose artistic success. I do not see any personal happiness arising from being a talentless hack, even if I do sell a million copies. Moreover, that might lose me the respect of some friends and family members. Producing quality stories (and, ideally, novels) would increase that respects, and eventually bring in new, respectful friends as well.

3

Artistic, no doubt. In fact, my biggest goal in life is to become an indie film director. I want money like any other red-blooded American, but I also want to be able to express myself without people Dan-Browning my work.

4

Artistic.

5

Your scenario makes it too easy to chose nobly. Become (a) a significant, respected and widely beloved artist with a secure living and emotional satisfaction vs. (b) fabulously wealthy but miserable and destroy your own capacity to create? No-brainer.

Could it be a choice between becoming (a) critically respected, beloved by a small niche audience, so you still have to “keep a day job”, say in a faculty position in the Lit Dept. of a small college vs. (b) a blockbuster with “commercial” pieces who nonetheless * can still create good literature, just can’t get anyone to take it seriously to SELL it*?

6

You may have a point. Okay, let’s say the choices are:

  1. Critically respected, beloved by a cult audience, but still struggling, and unlikely ever to make a living at your art, so that you have to work a full 40±hour week to support yourself & your family while you spend your free time toiling at your art; or

  2. Extreme success but an artistic sell-out.

Again, please note that the Muse isn’t changing anything about your talent or ability if you choose Option 1; she’s simply assessing your skills and the marketplace with her goddess-like wisdom.

7

I have to agree with JRDelirious that the choice given in the OP is too easy. For me, a good rule of thumb is that if there are two options and “option 2” involves Dan-Brownification, then I’m pretty much always going to go with “option 1” unless it involves bodily harm of innocent people (and I’m going to ask the follow-up question of “how severe is the bodily harm, and to exactly how many people” before I choose).

The re-statement of the choice in post #6 makes it more interesting, and {if I’ve understood the options correctly) might be enough to make me switch. If I’m still allowed to create good material, just not sell it, but am as rich as Croesus thanks to my crappy sell-out work, then I might get the best of both worlds.

Examples:
[ul]
[li]Many respected actors have taken “sell-out” roles to pay the bills and enable them to take on the more interesting projects. I don’t think that anybody really thinks any less of Michael Caine for doing Jaws: The Revenge [/li][QUOTE]
When Michael Caine was asked about this movie in an interview, he answered, “I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.”
[/QUOTE]
[li]I get to have the talent of a Van Gogh or a Picasso, but I paint sad-eyed clowns or run a Thomas Kinkade-type factory to support my career? Even if I can’t sell the good stuff, if it’s that good I can donate it to museums for free. The profitable crap will underwrite it.[/li][li]How about if I write Tom Clancy-style novels (just not Dan Brown, please), but also great literature that I put up on the Web for free downloads? I think I’d be OK with niche-market appeal for the good stuff, as long as the terms of the deal let me create the good stuff.[/li][li]Successful musicians face this decision all the time. I don’t begrudge Paul McCartney his millions from the crap he’s put out, because he did some damn fine work with that group he was in before Wings (and some good work since).[/li][/ul]

8

[homer]
Stop putting down Wings! Paul was the most talented member!
[/homer]

9

I’d take the artistic success, but I’m still an idealistic music student. Ask me again in twenty years. :slight_smile:

10

You know, if you need to think about this one for more than 2 and 1/2 seconds, you should give up your artistic career now.

11

I don’t think the initial deal makes any sense. I think if you had asked Dan Brown, before his success, which deal he would take he would have said offer one.

Do you really believe that because you don’t enjoy reading Dan Brown he gets no enjoyment from writing? I think that he and other clunkers like John Grisham are the same as every other writer I have read about - writing because they have to, without any regard for the results. I remember Grisham saying that his writing helped his law practice because he had to write late at night and very early in the morning. Everyone who passed his place assumed he was working at his desk on legal matters.

Since their stuff gets published and sells in the millions they don’t have to improve but I’m sure they are writing stuff that they like and in most cases doing it as well as they can. That as well as they can is not very good is beside the point. They are not choosing to write crap instead of “real literature”, it’s just all they can write.

The only writer I have ever heard of “deliberately” writing a commercial book is Mario Puzo who wrote The Godfather to appease his wife after several critically acclaimed non-sellers.

So I can’t imagine that any artist would accept a deal that made them money at the cost of enjoying what they do. Ask any writer and I think they will tell you that writing is a boring solitary pastime without the pleasure of creation.

12

Financial, hands-down.

Because then I could retire and have the time to write the Great American Novel which will make me artistically successful.

13

When I went through the OP I thought to myself, ‘…I’ll bet the majority will say artistic…and I bet the majority will be lying…’ :smiley:

14

I think what constitutes ‘selling out’ is largely a subjective assessment.

I’d say financial success. I chose to turn down a hefty scholarship to an art college because I didn’t want to become one of those whiny, smarmy art student types with an entitlement complex. Instead I chose to go into debt to put myself through school to get a job I knew would challenge me and provide a higher level of financial security, and allow me to pursue my artistic interests on my own time, on my own terms. I don’t think I could enjoy drawing/writing/playing music if I knew paying rent or my next meal depended upon it.

15

I work in advertising as a copywriter. Every day I try to produce the best work that I’m capable of, and every day it gets shit on, torn apart and otherwise “improved”, often by people who can’t even put together a coherent sentence in their own language, let alone in mine. The more I care about the project, the worse it is. By the end of it, I just want to hurt the client as much as possible by ripping every last yen out of their still-beating hearts and convincing them to come back for more.

Fuck art, just give me the money so I can go do what I enjoy.

16

Money.

It’s pretty simple for me. I write poetry, which already won’t sell. What keeps me writing is striving to write something better. If I could get rich from my writing, but knew I could never write something better, I would write the one thing then get a new obsession.

And I’d be able to afford the medical stuff my husband needs, to boot.

No question. I’d take the money, smiling.

17

Choice 2, obviously.

Don’t any of you guys have FAMILIES? (I wish I could work just 40 hours a week. What luxury.) “Oooh, Dan Brownification, ooh ooh.” If it’s between being “artistically successful” and providing for my family forever, artistic success can blow it. I’ve got relatives and friends who could use more cash and there’s nothing I’d love more than writing those fat checks.

“Sell-out” is an insult used by people without money.

18

Money.

Because, really, it would be more honest. I used to think to myself “Oh, how great if somebody could magically transform me into a great piano player so I could entertain people”, but that wouldn’t be me. I wouldn’t have earned that success.

This gets even worse with the scenario stated. In scenario number one, the premise is that you got a huge credibility within your clique. Guess what, fellas? The fairy did it to me. So, with scenario two, I might still be lying to everybody, but I’d be honest to myself. And I’d be rich.

19

Financially.

Because that meant that something that I wrote/composed/sang was appreciated by a LOT of people. Enough to make me financially successful. The high-brow academics may not consider me an “artist” but I am known to the general public as a WRITER. I make my living through the written word, and I am famous.

This now allows me to become to a dilletante, and engage my fantasy of become a darling of the elites with some future work.

If I pursue artistic success first I do the same thing, but without the private jets and island getaways. If I’m slaving away on my Great Novel I’d rather do it from St Croix than East St Louis.

20

Which was the best of all worlds, as he was also commercially succesful beyond all precedent at the same time as being considered musically and socially relevant (even if not always for exactly the same things).
It’s interesting that after the introduction of my suggested less-extreme scenario, the answers have turned decidedly in the direction of commercial success. Let’s face it, I don’t know anyone who WANTS to be a Starving Artist… I know people *wiling to endure it * for the sake of the art, but nobody who has that as their goal.