HOBBYIST OR BUSINESS

The most difficult mental leap for me was to re-invent how I viewed my visual art.   Was my artistic interest a casual past-time activity for my own pleasure or did my interest transcend to a level to make a lifestyle change and become a self-supporting artist?  Self-supporting can be defined in many ways, but at a bear minimum its definition needs to include making a profit over break-even costs.  Whether its a part-time or full-time enterprise, we have to make a commitment not to give our product/services away (especially to family and friends).  Please know that it is easier said than done, I still make gifts of my work and most likely will continue to do so.  However, I have taught myself to apply the same value to my art as  non-artist services do who customarily get paid for time/materials & profit.  Therefore as a business enterprise, we need to determine what the market will bear for our work.  In this assessment we need to make sure that we are comparing apples with apples.  Its relatively easy to make that determination, but in practice many of us are reluctant to insist on being paid a fair-market price.  In part because we have not completely made that mental leap that we are providing a professional service/product.  Selling your work to someone you don't know is far easier than getting paid by family and friends.  When your friends and family pay a fair price for your work and insist not to take it as a gift (unless its a special occasion) you have taken that important leap from viewing yourself as a hobbyist to establishing yourself as in the business of art.