In business school, they talk about The 6 Stages of Entrepreneurship. But in art school, they don’t even use the word entrepreneur. They should. Artists are entrepreneurs. That’s the truth. And it’s the difference between the old economy and the new.
But artists have always been entrepreneurs; they’ve had to be. Though instead of The 6 Stages of Entrepreneurship, I believe that working artists experience The 6 Stages of Initiation.
Stage One is that moment the spark is lit. You just know you want to do this one thing, all the time and do it really well. You want to make stuff.
Stage Two is when you want to know everything, because you’re suddenly aware of how much you don’t know. Every time you look at your work it’s glaringly obvious to you. You’ve got nothing but questions.
So at Stage Three, you learn. You learn everything you can about your craft, about your practice, about your ideas, about your voice, about your self.
And then that spark comes back again, and suddenly you can’t be stopped. You connect with your work and it’s a pleasure like no other. Ah! Stage Four.
And then they come. Your people. You’ve been waiting impatiently since the start. But you forget; building an art career is a marathon, darling. It’s not a sprint. It takes time to get to Stage Five.
And then you find yourself one day looking into the eyes of a young artist, all lit up from that heady initial spark. She’ll be asking you questions about everything, because she wants to know it all right now. You’ve arrived at Stage Six, sharing your knowledge.
Now you understand that everything has its time. And that in the art business, sometimes lessons must be learned the old fashioned way; you’ve got to work for them.
These are the Artist’s Six Stages of Initiation. Enjoy your journey!
2 Comments
This is great!
Before you quit your day job to become a full time artist, I suggest investing in some small business and money management classes, being a full time artist is hard work and never a steady paycheck, make sure you have “all your ducks in a row” before diving in head first. Definitely take the dive, but be prepared for rough water, you always have to remember it’s not all about creating artwork, you must know how to market your art, book shows, talk about yourself and your creations in front of many strangers and often. When you fall you get back up, when you get declined you move forward, keep your head above water and keep swimming, for every one artist who “makes it” hundreds don’t.