Artist Myth #9d: Artists are Flakes

Myth Nine: Artists are flakes
My first business plan consisted of one-sentence scribbled on a napkin from the bagel shop where I had just quit. With that napkin, I set off to make my living as a painter at the Portland Saturday market (the country’s largest outdoor art market).

My decision to “go for it” had come in the middle of the night during an anxiety-filled-sweat-soaked panic when I suddenly seemed to realize how shallow my life had become. For eight hours a day, my life consisted of little more than listening to a buzzer and watching a red light flash on and off instructing me to put trays of round bread in an oven and then take them back out. When I reached through the darkness for the napkin and a pen, my focus was simply to make enough money each month from my artwork to never have to work a 9 to 5 job again.

My straightforward mission would not fail me because I had left myself with little room to fail - The napkin said so. A year later, I found myself with more money, more freedom, and more happiness than I had ever had in my life.

Moral: Those things which constitute flakiness – not being on time, not being organized, not having a focus, not following a plan - never need to exist on such a black and white palette in order to work. Sometimes the way that will work best for you is a watered down version of what works for everyone else.