blog six- makayla norvell

The starving artist joke that runs through all coffee shops and high schools is sadly a rumor that is based on fact. It is career field that does not pay well and is hard to get work in, unless you have some type of formal training or higher education. The most common thing to hear about in the arts field would be studio art, where people set up an easel and paint in their living room, trying to make a living selling low budget redraws of the mona lisa in a globetrotters jersey. Though the more successful but less sought out field would be graphic design, which is my career of choice after the struggle of college. Graphic design is basically digital drawing for companies, designing logos, billboards, or company promotion art. Thankfully I have always known that this is the job that I wanted, and I am ok with things being hard at times, since I am sure I could get some valuable life lessons while i'm eating ramen in the dark.

The one thing I do not understand about this is why being an artist is such a low paying job. Everywhere you look around you there is a drawing or picture of something, and one person cant be doing all of it, so why is the starving artist stereotype still true. Part of it comes from the fact that people undercharge for their skill, purely to make ends meet. Another piece could be that being able to draw or paint is seen as a useless skill unless its applied to something everyone considers worth something, and the art is only worth it if the product is. Take Iphones for example, if someone were to do art for the Apple company, they could make thousands; just because everyone has a cellphone. But turn it around and say that a company selling toothpicks needs art… that's worth about twenty five dollars and half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. All thanks to what public demand is. Hopefully one day art on its own will be held in a regard high enough to be worth what people actually put into it, but for now we have rely on the fact that the twinkie factory needs someone to draw a twinkie wearing a cowboy hat.