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Last week, two seemingly unrelated events made think about the same issue artists/creatives continually struggle with — doing jobs/gigs that pay well but may be ‘boring’ or mainstream versus doing jobs/gigs that they really like but pays measly or are really hard to come by. During the first event, it was a discussion between photographers about doing better paid jobs such as weddings or events versus full-on documentary work, which is extremely rare these days.
In the second case, I was at a small music gig and both performers are singer-songwriters (see above image)who are quite adamant about writing and singing their own Mandarin songs, which according to a friend, are ‘doubly disadvantaged’ since the local music scene is more predisposed towards English songs (I might be wrong) and the market for original Chinese songs is very small here.
At a broader level, I am compelled to think about this issue as a passion vs ‘selling out’ analogy, not just in the art/creative space but say in the context of a day job.I can really relate to the earlier first example — ideally I would want to do documentary or photojournalism work but weddings and events pay much better and are relatively easier to come by.
I don’t think I have an easy answer to this but I wonder how creatives/artists cope with the struggle. Or perhaps, it might not even be a struggle or consideration for some.
