Fifty years ago I was listening to the commentator Paul Harvey reading a letter from an artist asking for advice on how to make a living from his art. I turned the volume up on my radio, not wanting to miss this advice. Sipping hot chocolate I listened with great interest. Just getting into the profession of being an artist myself, I set my paint brush down, and with pencil in hand I waited for Mr. Harvey to finish the reading of the letter and begin with his answer.
"Get a job and start contributing to America," came the unexpected answer. I just stared at the radio for a good ten minutes. Just about every artist has been asked if they have ever had a real job. I never hear of any artists being told to get a job, but I do hear, "Have you ever had a real job?" every few years.
I like to think I have a real job. 40 hours a week, or sometimes it's 60 hours a week in the studio. I employ people, paying twice the minimum wage at least. I help keep others employed through my buying of materials. I donate to different charities and causes. Pay taxes. So what defines a real job? I’m sorry that I don't hate mine, and have no plans of retiring from it.
Right now, I am doing a series of paintings of dogs these days . Not commission portraits, just doing them for fun. Maybe that is the reason that question of having a real job comes up every so often. I simply enjoy painting - whether it is a still-life of flowers on my windowsill or a painting of a fallen tree in Fabyan woods, I enjoy it. I have a reputation for doing nudes, which I also enjoy. I am surprised at how much I learn by doing a nude. Learned about lambing from one lovely lady. I just couldn't picture her wrestling a lamb from its mother's womb in a cold barn in the wee hours of the morning. Another told me how the doctors were going to take out one of her kidneys and give it to her mother. She recuperated in my studio posing for one of my reclining poses.
I still think of Mr. Harvey telling that artist to get a real job. Now I smile and go back to my paintings of dogs.
