I’m an artist; not a great artist, or a famous artist by any means, but I do have a following of sorts, and I make a substantial chunk of my overall income at it. I paint bright, almost cartoon-y, surrealist fish and marine life (I posted a link to my newly redesigned website a while back here at SDMB if you 'wanna look…). It’s what I’ve become known for—at any number of outdoor art shows I do, it’s not unusual to hear someone yell, “Hey! It’s the fish guy!”—and it’s what makes the money. During tourist season, it makes pretty damn good money.
The bitch is, I’m bored to death with it. The bright, wacky fish, the tropical Jimmy Buffett-Lite schtick. I haven’t painted in weeks; I have 4 unfinished pieces that I’ve lost interest in and have just set aside until I feel like finishing them up (that’s rare for me; I’m usually pretty methodical about finishing one and moving on to the next). My sketchbook is empty and I have no cool ideas for any new work. I have a show coming up in July, and I have enough originals (and prints) for that one, but after that…I 'dunno. I spend my studio time feeling frustrated and surfing the 'net lately.
I’ve had creative slumps before, but never this long or this deep.
There are dozens of other themes and media I’d love to test drive, but mainly just for my own entertainment. Hell, I’m almost 44 years old and established; I can’t just change what I do and hope my customers/fans/patrons come along for the ride, can I?
My condolences. It isn’t the same, but there are days when I just don’t feel like programming. I love the hard stuff, but database stuff bores the piss out of me - and lately most of my stuff is database stuff.
As a hobbyist, I feel your pain. I’m a World of Warcraft roleplayer and I write fanfic based on my characters. When I first discovered RP I was gung-ho into this, and by all accounts my stories are pretty good. I really enjoyed it, too. I’m a good writer, but I’ve never been into creative writing at any time in my life. Suddenly this door opened to a new talent I never thought I had, and it was really fulfilling.
About six months ago the well ran dry. Anytime I sit down to write, I just stare at a blank page. I’ve got seeds of stories bouncing around in my head, but I can’t get them to germinate on the page. It’s frustrating to have an ability but not be able to harness it.
You hit on something people like, so feel that’s all you can afford to do. Since your already not doing anything why don’t you try something different. It can’t hurt and it can be a time to experiment which can recharge you.
Sure you can. There’s no guarantee people are going to buy it, but if you don’t give it a shot, it sounds like artwork is going to become a chore. And you’ll be condescending to your audience, which you probably don’t want to do. Regardless of how you end up dealing with your slump, good luck to you.
You may also want to consider that trying out other media/topics that you are truly interested in will rekindled your creative passion. If it starts really flowing again, you may start producing things that are exceptional pieces in your repertoire, and people will notice. Doing other things might challenge you to learn new techniques that you can then apply back to your fishy foundation, so you could possibly take those in a new direction.
If your main goal is to make money, you can still do the fishes occasionally (I think that’s a major struggle in most professional artists’ lives… trying to balance time to create the commercial pieces and the pieces that speak to your soul). But don’t be afraid of trying new things! It may get messy, the results may be horrible at first… But you’ll never know until you try, and it’s better than just sitting around doing nothing, right? Good luck!
I would echo what other above have said. Working as an Architect for a large commercial firm has certainly also put it limits on my creativity, but I just find other outlets for doing what I enjoy, and that is what you will need to do as well. Often it is something as simple as helping friends design their deck–just something that doesn’t have the limitations that my commercial artistic side has.
I like the idea of other media which would allow you to carry forward your income producing idea without compromising your creativity. And throw a few new different types of painting in there, you may be known as the ‘fish’ guy, but that doesn’t mean you can have another type of art you become known for—in fact you have a leg up on struggling artists as they have nothing to fall back on. You can start out with 80% fish and 20% new art work and if the new stuff sells, you can start shifting and adding other concepts knowing you have a sure seller with the fish art.