How to Make a Work of Art

The question of How to Make a Work of Art, is necessarily preceded by this one: Should I Make a Work of Art? I think you should, even if yours is the art of living.

As I was writing the final paragraphs on my St. Joseph the Worker post, I had a deeper conviction that I did not have time to elaborate on.

In my last post, I talked about the seamless transition between work that is art and art that is leisure.

How is this possible?

How to Make a Work of Art

There are many ways to make a work of your art, or in other words to do what you consider to be beautiful and life-giving full time for most of your days.

Isn’t the famous quote, “If you love what you do, you won’t work a day in your life?”

How about this less-cheesy-yet-still-famous quote:

“Your vocation in life is where your greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need.”

– Frederick Beuchner

Are these the answer? Choose a better job?

Well, that could work, but maybe there is a little more to it than that.

Make Art Your Work: Jump Right In

“Why wait?”

“What is stopping you?”

These are phrases you might hear that make it tempting to jump right in to the deep end.

Diving head first into trying to live off of your passions is amazing. Imagine an entire life devoted to your dream work. If you have an art that you love, this could provide an extremely fulfilling life.

This method is beautiful, but will require some combination of two things: a certainty of exactly what you are diving into, or an extreme trust that God will guide you as you land.

Knowing Your Art

Think of diving into a pool. You probably want to know the depth of the water before you leave the ground. The good news is that you can clear the waters a little bit by having mentors who have gone before you.

Similarly, you also want to have some training or experience in your craft, like knowing how to swim. This could mean you got an art degree, you took some courses to get formal training, or you started small and have been practicing for many years and had some experience putting your work out there.

This is an important step because, the discipline of knowing your craft creates freedom. When I first started playing guitar, I was not free to play a full song from start to finish. Now, after 16 years of playing guitar, I have had enough hours with my instrument that I could hear a song once on the radio and probably play back a version (probably a little simplified) of it for you after a few minutes of tinkering. This freedom took years of playing along with some formal instruction.

Trust in God

The book of Proverbs talks a lot about the wise man and the foolish man.

Within Christian circles it can seem that the people who take leaps of faith are just bigger believers or more trusting than those who live more carefully and conservatively. Whatever it looks like from the outside, individuals and families should pray about these leaps. The Holy Spirit can actually clear the waters for you. Then with that counsel, one can more confidently determine the next steps.

Taking years to practice your craft and to train would not be considered “not trusting in God”, just as a kid picking up a football and saying, “I wanna play pro someday” would imply years of practice. There are many examples: students should study, athletes should get in shape, people who want to create should create. It is a calling.

So you’ve got the hard work and the trust, but after all, if you are doing what you love, is it really work?

Yes. Yes it is.

To go this route would be to depend fully on your craft to pay the bills. This can be scary and mix some stress into the joy of creating. This is truly where the true trust comes into play. At moments it will be tough, but to jump right in will have its uncertain moments.

On top of that, you have to be willing to put in the extra work of self-promotion, invoicing, filing paperwork for taxes for your business, and trying to create what sells.

When something you love to do needs to sell for you to provide for yourself and your family, I would imagine that it can creep into the back of your mind and make it hard to concentrate.

If you are clearly called to pursue your art from the beginning, that is amazing! For the rest of us, it will take some working out, some testing. I do not think everyone should make a career of their hobbies, but it is awesome to know that it is possible. I am super inspired by those who do this.

Make Work Your Art: Dip Your Toes

Sticking with the image of going into the deep end, this is the safe place on the far side of the pool with the steps and a little hand rail.

Dipping your toes into making your art your work means that you are playing it safe for as long as you need to until you are not dependent on your art to provide for you at all. You can keep your hobbies as just that – hobbies.

While this is the safest option, some would argue that it might be too safe. Never willing to be afraid and risky, you will only ever create if you are buoyed up by the floaties of work that you do not feel is your true calling.

You can grind as hard as you can, work long hours, and save up so that you have enough to pay for your expenses for the rest of your life, thus freeing you to create.

This is very possible, but dipping your toes comes with its own set of risks. With many hours lost that you could have been honing your craft, you will enter into the deep end with your floaties on at an older age with the young kids who dove right in and have been swimming for years doing laps around you!

Even more, with the floaties secure, you might never learn to swim. Some artists are motivated by the job and the little bit of fear that can create inspiration. Even though no one wants to be a “starving artist”, there is something about the desperation that can create wonderful works!

Work to Make Art Your Work: Learning to Swim

The pursuit of art as work, for most, will likely lie somewhere between a toe dip and a head first dive. You may have to spend some time making your work an art before you can make your art your work.

What I mean by this is essentially a gradual phasing out of your “traditional” or initial work. This work as art provides a foundation in order to pursue art as work. As you build a cushion of savings, you determine how much padding you are comfortable with before making a leap. To keep with the analogy, you are walking down the slope from the shallow to the deep end and deciding when you want to kick off and do the work of swimming.

Rather than diving right into the deep end with no savings, you can decide determine the depth that you want to learn to swim at.

Adjusting the Depth

Let’s assume, you need a minimum of $40,000 each year to live off of.

Jumping into the deep end would be a savings of $0, requiring $40,000 / year from your art.

Dipping your toes would mean saving and investing around $1,000,000 in order to provide passive income (assuming 4% safe withdrawal, but do some research to decide for yourself what is safe to you). This requires $0 / year from your art.

The picture below shows how you could adjust the depth of the pool in this example.

Buying Time

Time is money, and it takes time to learn to swim. On top of which ever depth you decide to learn at, you will also want to decide how much time you are going to give yourself to learn.

In the example above, if I want to give myself two years to learn the ins and outs of making a work of art, I would set a goal of how long it will take my new business to start earning anything. Maybe the art makes $0 for year one, then starts to pick up and earn $10,000 in year two, so say $70,000 might be safe to buy the time to learn. Remember that buying this time would be in addition to your invested savings and any costs of running your business.

Risk, Trust, and Prayer

How quickly this transition happens will depend what level of risk you are willing to take on. It will take prayer and consideration. Not everyone who sits at a steady job is untrusting of God, and not everyone who takes the leap into artistry is crazy.

Hearing the Call to Work at Art

Discernment. Discernment is a fancy term for listening for a call and deciding where to go based on it.

Have you ever had inclinations or “gut feelings” that you should pursue a path that seems illogical but the idea of it gave you a sense of peace? I have definitely experienced these moments in small and large ways; also, at some times more than others. I always thought these moments were mostly chance until recently.

In the School of the Holy Spirit

The latest book that I have been reading is called, In the School of the Holy Spirit, by Fr. Jacques Philippe. If you have any desire to learn more about how to foster and listen for those inspirations or how to understand where God is leading you, I would recommend you read this book. All of Fr. Jacques books are concise, yet packed with wisdom.

Here are some of my favorite highlights:

The secret of holiness could be described as discovering that we can obtain everything from God, on condition that we know “how to get hold of him.”

Every motion that comes from God brings both the light to understand what God intends, and the strength to accomplish it: light that illuminates the mind, and strength that gives power to the will.

One of the petitions we make to God most often should be: “Inspire me in all my decisions, and never let me neglect any of your inspirations.”

Once we accept the inspiration and cease to put up resistance to it, then our heart finds itself settled in deep peace.

We cannot, without making ourselves unhappy, make of our lives anything other than that for which we have been created: to receive and give love.

and lastly,

THE ENTIRE LAST PAGE! But you have to read for yourself to get there!

I hope the book helps you to pursue where you are being led.

I pray God gives us all clarity and peace! Amen.

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If you are new to prayer, maybe pick up Time for God first. I would also highly recommend for these current times, Searching for and Maintaining Peace.