Why Being an Artist Is More Vocation Than Career
People often assume that becoming an artist is a career choice. For me, it never really felt like one.
I’ve done all sorts of jobs throughout my life. I’ve worked as an insurance salesperson, a tent erector, a workshop facilitator, and many other things in between. Yet regardless of what paid the bills, there was always one constant: I was making art.
Photography, drawing, writing, filmmaking, journalling, sketchbooks bursting at the seams—I was creating alongside every job I ever had. My notebooks and sketchbooks are physical evidence of a lifetime spent compulsively making things. Their spines are broken from overfilling, their pages crammed with ideas, observations, plans, and experiments.
The truth is that art has never been something I decided to do. It’s simply something I have always done.
When Illness Changes Everything
When I was younger, I seemed capable of doing everything at once.
I could work full-time, study at college or university, make art in my spare time, maintain a home, and still find energy for new projects. Looking back, I realise how much I took that energy for granted.
After the age of 26, things began to change.
I became increasingly unwell and spent years trying to understand what was happening to me. Eventually, I was realised I had fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition that many people still know very little about and, frustratingly, some don’t believe exists at all.
Over time, fibromyalgia slowly pushed pieces of my life away.
The person I used to be could do almost anything. The person I became had to learn limits. I had to understand a body that no longer followed the rules I expected. I had to accept that some opportunities would always come with consequences.
That process was painful, confusing, and ongoing.
The jobs I am capable of sustaining long-term don’t really exist in a traditional sense. So I’ve had to create my own path instead.
In many ways, that’s where creativity stepped forward and proved its value.
The Hidden Cost of Working While Disabled
At the moment, I manage to teach workshops in person between one and three days a week.
From the outside, that probably doesn’t sound like much.
What people don’t see is the recovery time.
Every day of face-to-face work usually requires at least one full day afterwards spent managing intense pain and exhaustion. Often more. Those recovery days aren’t restful. They aren’t holidays. They aren’t opportunities to recharge.
They’re survival.
The pain accumulates over time. The exhaustion builds. Eventually, the difficult days catch up with me and become weeks of struggling to function.
Then I get up and do it all over again.
Living with a chronic illness means constantly calculating costs that nobody else can see. Every commitment comes with a price attached.
That’s why I have spent the last few years trying to build a creative career that is sustainable rather than punishing.
Not because I want an easy life.
Because I want a life that isn’t built around repeatedly breaking myself.
Building a Creative Career Online
My long-term goal is to create multiple strands of creative income that can be managed largely online.
At the moment I earn small amounts through YouTube, Facebook, Patreon, and the Amazon Affiliate Programme. None of these income streams are substantial yet. Together they amount to little more than pocket money.
But they represent possibility.
Each small payment is evidence that alternative models can work.
The administrative side of being an artist is rarely glamorous. In fact, it can feel like a second job entirely. Writing blogs, creating videos, maintaining social media, applying for opportunities, documenting work, building communities, answering emails, updating websites—none of this is the part people usually imagine when they think about art.
Yet it is essential.
Years ago, I couldn’t have imagined sustaining a career without support from cultural organisations and institutions. Today, the internet has created different possibilities.
Instead of relying on a local audience, I can reach people across the world.
That changes everything.
The Reality of the Cultural Sector
I established my art business in 2009 immediately after graduating from university.
I was fortunate enough to receive a scholarship studio and quickly became involved in funded projects, commissions, and collaborations. Some opportunities I designed and fundraised for myself. Others came through partnerships with cultural organisations.
For much of my career, I worked closely with arts organisations in Sunderland.
That changed when I began campaigning to save the National Glass Centre.
Speaking out came with consequences.
Whether officially or unofficially, it became clear that challenging powerful institutions carries risks. The arts sector often promotes itself as progressive, supportive, and open. My experience has sometimes suggested otherwise.
Too often, opportunities depend on relationships, networks, and being part of the right circles.
If you’re outside those circles, doors can close very quickly.
The organisations that are supposed to support artists can sometimes become barriers instead.
Universities and Community
My relationship with universities has also changed significantly over the years.
I once worked closely with higher education institutions and valued those connections. Increasingly, however, I’ve watched universities become more insular and disconnected from the communities around them.
Creative subjects continue to face cuts. Community engagement often feels secondary to expansion and financial growth.
As someone who cares deeply about access to creativity, education, and culture, I find that difficult to ignore.
The only real power I have is deciding where I put my time and labour.
For now, that means choosing not to collaborate with institutions whose values no longer align with my own.
Art Has Become a Scrap
Being an artist today feels increasingly difficult.
Commissions are scarce.
Funding opportunities are shrinking.
Many artists are competing for fewer resources than ever before.
I genuinely worry about graduates entering the sector now. They’ve often paid thousands of pounds a year for education without any clear route towards a sustainable creative career afterwards.
The economics simply don’t add up.
The truth is that stubbornness has probably been my greatest professional asset.
I have no children and no mortgage. Those realities have given me a level of flexibility that many people simply don’t have.
If my circumstances were different, I might have been forced to abandon art entirely.
Not because I lacked commitment.
Because survival would demand it.
The Work Never Stops
Although I only teach in person a few days each week, art occupies almost every waking hour.
If I’m not making artwork, I’m writing about it.
If I’m not writing, I’m filming.
If I’m not filming, I’m researching opportunities.
If I’m not researching, I’m planning future projects.
Art isn’t confined to studio hours.
It’s a way of thinking.
A way of processing the world.
That’s why I believe being an artist is more vocation than career choice.
Nobody chooses this path because it’s financially sensible.
You choose it because not doing it feels impossible.
The Myth of Inspiration
People often imagine artists waiting for moments of inspiration.
The reality is usually much less romantic.
Most of the time, I make work whether I feel inspired or not.
My art doesn’t emerge from flashes of genius. It emerges from persistence.
From showing up.
From continuing despite pain, grief, frustration, uncertainty, and exhaustion.
The word “inspiration” suggests awe and wonder.
My work often begins somewhere much messier.
Pain.
Loss.
Anger.
Grief.
Art gives those experiences somewhere to go.
It becomes therapy, protest, reflection, and survival all at once.
The finished pieces don’t necessarily look sad or angry. What matters is the process. The physical act of making something real.
For me, the work is deeply connected to questions about class, disability, gender, and what people deserve from life.
Creating art at all feels like a form of resistance.
A System for Survival
Before beginning a body of work, I usually develop a simple system.
A good system allows repetition without becoming repetitive. It creates structure while leaving room for experimentation.
My current system revolves around reusing empty pill packets through cyanotype and collage.
The framework remains constant.
The image changes.
The first series explored memento mori imagery through a toy skeleton. At the time, my grandmother had recently died, and the work became a lifeline. Making those pieces helped me navigate grief while developing the technique itself.
The next series used a diptych self-portrait, split between a natural image and an AI-filtered version.
That work emerged from questions about identity, ageing, technology, and illness. By the end, I was thoroughly sick of seeing my own face. Yet the project helped me process turning forty-one and reminded me that I am still a woman, not simply a patient.
Then my beloved cat Narla died.
Again, the process became a form of mourning.
Working repeatedly with his image allowed me to sit alongside grief rather than be overwhelmed by it.
Each piece is built upon the traces of illness: discarded medication packaging from my fibromyalgia treatment combined with images connected to significant life events.
The result feels personal without being overtly autobiographical.
Profound without shouting.
Hidden Messages
One of my favourite elements within these works is something many viewers never notice.
Every piece contains a hidden message.
Written in invisible ink, these handwritten laments can only be revealed under ultraviolet light.
The messages sit beneath the surface, unseen unless someone actively seeks them out.
That feels fitting.
Fibromyalgia is largely invisible too.
People see you functioning and assume everything is fine. They don’t see the pain, the fatigue, the calculations, the compromises, or the recovery afterwards.
The hidden texts become a metaphor for chronic illness itself.
Present.
Real.
Important.
Yet largely unseen.
Supporting Independent Artists
If you’ve enjoyed reading about my work, there are several ways you can help support independent artists like me.
Creating art, writing, videos, and educational content takes an enormous amount of time, especially while managing a long-term health condition. Every form of support helps make this work more sustainable.
Join My Patreon
Patreon allows supporters to contribute a small monthly amount that helps fund ongoing creative projects. Regular support provides stability and helps me spend more time creating new work, writing, filming, and sharing the creative process.
Subscribe to My YouTube Channel
Watching videos, subscribing, commenting, and sharing content all help increase visibility. YouTube may only generate small amounts of income, but audience engagement plays a huge role in helping creative content reach new people.
Buy Original Artwork
Purchasing artwork directly supports the creation of future work. It allows artists to continue experimenting, developing ideas, and producing new projects without relying solely on grants, commissions, or institutions.
Share My Work
Even if you can’t contribute financially, sharing blog posts, videos, exhibitions, and artwork with others can make a significant difference. Word of mouth remains one of the most powerful forms of support available to independent creatives.
The Quiet Work Nobody Sees
Most people see the finished artwork.
They don’t see the years of practice, the pain management, the failures, the applications, the rejected proposals, the grief, the self-doubt, or the endless hours spent making things that may never be shown.
They don’t see the quiet work.
But that’s where art really happens.
Not in galleries.
Not in institutions.
Not in funding applications.
In kitchens, spare rooms, studios, sketchbooks, and late-night ideas.
In the determination to keep making something despite every reason not to.
For me, that’s what being an artist has always been.
Not a career choice.
A way of surviving.
#ContemporaryArt #DisabledArtist #FibromyalgiaAwareness #ArtistLife #CreativePractice
