I currently earn most of my income painting landscape commissions for rich Arabs via a London Gallery.
I also spend 6 weeks a year as an art handler installing the Barbican International Enterprises touring exhibition
Game On 2.0 in various countries.
From these 2 jobs I can earn a decent living and only have to work 6 months of the year.
Currently the rest of my time is spent looking after my 13 month old son as my wife has to work full time.
So in short i'm very, very fortunate. This has not always been the case however.
Like Bandshell I hated the idea of having to work. After finishing school (and a very brief attempt at an art foundation) I worked for my Dad for a year doing basic CAD.
When the job ended I signed on, all my mates at the time were on the dole so I wanted to be too. I had the misfortune of living on the Isle of Wight so the interesting creative jobs I imagined myself doing were nowhere to be found. Even if there had been any opportunities I would have had no idea how to find them.
After 5 years claiming income support, bumming around and getting stoned I realised that rather than sticking 2 fingers up to the man and enjoying a carefree life doing stuff I enjoyed. I was paranoid, depressed, stuck in a rut and completely lacking in self confidence.
Fortunately this was also the time that the government brought in JSA and suddenly signing on every week was not so simple. I was given an ultimatum: get a shitty job or sign up to a training course.
I started a BTEC graphics course, after a year of this (and with supportive tutors) I was able to assemble a good enough portfolio to get on an art degree and get off the Isle of Wight.
While I was studying I made money as a DJ and promoter (DJing being the one positive thing I spent my time on the dole doing), and later working for a small craft firm making chandeliers.
Both jobs were good but the second was bloody hard work.
After finishing my BA I had no idea what to do, I didn't want a proper job and my DJing career hadn't progressed as I was rubbish at promoting myself/networking, etc.
Also my ears were pretty knackered.
I applied for an art MA in London and continued working part time making the chandeliers, this gave me just enough money to get by and time to make paintings.
I then spent 3 years at a prestigious London art college and left with my confidence in tatters and the realisation that although I was technically good at painting I really didn't have what it took to be a fine artist.
So after 7 years of further education I felt like I was back at square one. I'd had a great time at college but never really learned anything that was of use to me in the real world. The only work experience we did was lecturing, but you needed an art practice to do that as colleges expected you to talk about your own work as well as give tutorials.
I'd been doing some part time art handling while I was studying so I carried on with that.
I worked for 3 years in a traditional gallery installing boring paintings for just over minimum wage, working full time and just about getting by (but slowly slipping into debt).
Eventually I got some work installing at The Barbican Gallery through a friend that worked there, once I had the Barbican on my CV other doors opened and I got some better art handling jobs, then the credit got crunched and lots of doors closed again as everyone tightened their belts.
Again I was back to just scrapping by, having spare time now but being so broke that I couldn't really relax and appreciate it.
The future seemed very uncertain, I tried applying for 'real' jobs but having no experience I didn't get far. I couldn't afford to work for freee to gain experience and to be honest didn't see why I should have to.
Two years ago I applied for the overseas art handling job hoping all my little bits of cobbled together experience might just add up to something. I didn't get the job but got a call back 8 months later for a new post and this time I did get it.
I'd always felt that companies expected you to have done a job already when you went for the interview, but I drew on my different experiences and was honest about what I didn't have experience of. By this point i'd mustered some sef confidence again and it worked.
I learned on the job and everything went fairly smoothly.
The commission work came about through an everyday chat with another art handler at the poorly paying gallery, I was making some 'realist' paintings to try and get a job making paintings for other artists (a job I didn't ened up getting as the art bubble popped).
The girl I chatted to about it had a conversation with someone from the commissions department at a later date when they were looking for younger artists who could paint in a realist style and she mentioned me.
Although i'd worked there for 4 odd years I had no idea that you could just be a commissioned artist for the gallery without having an ongoing practice making that style of painting (something I had no interest in doing).
So without networking but due to normal conversations and working within a field i've ended up with (for me) the perfect job.
The 4 years of shit work now justified by the good job I would never have got otherwise.
As for the future who knows? Neither of these jobs has any security but I hope they continue long enough that the stuff i've learned from them i'll be able to take forward (or sideways in to some other job).
So i've written a lot and I don't know what you will take from it, maybe just what a lucky bastard.
Looking back now I wish I hadn't been on the dole all those years as it just seems like such wasted time, if I had worked i'm sure I would have learned some stuff I could have employed elsewhere.
I've also spent many a dark poverty stricken moment wishing i'd studied something more practical than art so I had some chance to earn a reliable living, but the pieces did finally come together and now i'm very glad I was so pig headed and followed the things I was passionate about.
Maybe if i'd just settled for a shit job at the beginning i'd still be living on the IoW working at it now...
