How to give away art and still make a living

A redefinition

Years ago, someone got a little heated when I was talking about my art-making practice. I was expressing how much I enjoyed making art regardless of whether it sells, how freeing that can feel, and how important it was for me to create some space between my creative process and money, at least in the process of making it.

The response was, word for word, “must be nice to be able to make art without needing to sell it, meanwhile, some people rely on it to make a living.”

Hearing that kind of felt like I had a brand new ice cream but another person didn’t like their flavor and wanted mine, and instead of asking for a spoonful, they karate chopped it on purpose so it would fall to its death and melt on the cement.

So we could be even!

I am not sure if that person strategically wanted to hurt me or if it was more about making something that hurt inside of them (or many of us as a collective) feel better or validated. I don’t think either of those outcomes occurred in that moment, but I hope at this point we’ve both healed beyond that interaction and are all the wiser, because we are together in this. I can still relate. There is not a template for a healthy creativity-money relationship, and it is not easy to find a balance. It makes sense this person was angry. I get angry about it too. They weren’t wrong, because of course artists need to make a living.

On making a living

I really like the term “making a living”. In essence, it implies that “a living” is something we can actively create. This begs two questions: What is a living? What is it like to make one?

I am inviting myself to redefine what it means to make a living. Making a living can be about more than money. Notice that I’m not saying it doesn’t involve money at all. I would simply like to look at making a living as creating a life experience where I feel supported in more than one way. Giving away my paint and art for free sometimes is part of my own making, of my ideal living. It does support me in a certain way. So, I am foraging through the brambles to discover more beliefs about how our creative work can make us money and we can also be really generous with it.

This week I sent an email to the winner of my June painting giveaway (congrats and thank you again, Jessica!) and I am so excited to send it in the mail today.

In case you missed it:

Each month for paid subscribers, I am creating a grouping of natural paints from foraged color and sharing my process, research, story, place, and inquiries of varying depths about it all. I wanted there to be something extra exciting for anyone who chooses to become a paid subscriber, so as a fun thank you offering, I decided that a random person on the paid list each month will be chosen to win a painting made with the palette I share! I’m deep into my July palette already.

Giving is living

Over the last several months I feel I have been given to a lot. Even when I pay for a course, I still feel like it is a gift to have the opportunity to even take it. The teachers in my life are consistently so generous with what they share with others, all in the name of it being all beyond us, and how we are in service of the same larger purposes, which inspires me further to give.

Giving is different than working for free. Giving doesn’t have to mean undervaluing yourself or your work. Giving can actually come from a place where you value yourself and your work so much you feel it is worthy of being gifted.

The reason I say any of this is because we all know giving feels good, but when giving is tied to the thing you to for money it can get confusing. I think the only way to navigate it is to feel it out for oneself.

At my Solstice event last month, I made some watercolor paints from flower pigments and gave it away to anyone who showed up. It was such a joy for me to share about my process in person and demonstrate the stages of making paint from plant materials. Making paint and giving it away was an exercise in how it feels to not be too precious about the fruits of my labor, and loving it enough to think it made an exciting thing to gift. The process of getting to know a material, foraging it, extracting the color, making it into a pigment, waiting for water to evaporate, grinding to dust and mulling it into binder is a patient, personal, labor and time intensive process. One of which I love. To put in all of that time and energy and give away the end product simply makes me feel happy in this particular case, is all. No, I don’t have to do that with everything I make. But every once in a while when it is called for, it’s exciting and lovely to offer something for fun for free.

And it’s not really for free, because there was reciprocal energy. In return for the paint, I got the opportunity to share my process with people in real life, which made me feel even more excited about my practice. Excitement is one form of currency in the equation of what I need to make my living.

I’m curious about how other people navigate work, art, money and gifting. Leave a comment if you’d like or reply to the email.

Thank you for reading,

♡ Kristen

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Field of Visions is a Substack newsletter by artist Kristen Drozdowski about creativity and how it leads us through self-discovery. Palette of the Month Club is their monthly discovery of natural, foraged color, available for paid subscribers of Field of Visions. Each month Kristen creates a palette of 3-5 hand made paints or inks using botanical, mineral or urban/household/waste stream pigments that are consciously foraged through building relationship with each material, discovering even more inner lessons along the way. Subscribers will receive full documentation of the process, methods, and meaningful stories about Kristen’s conversations with the beings-as-materials and people-as-places they discover. Read more here and/or subscribe/upgrade below: