Don’t Quit Your Day Job: How to Avoid Selling Out and Make Art You Actually Like

I like to read books on the intersection of creativity and productivity. It’s kind of my way of sharpening my mind for writing and creating music. Reading has always been a form of escapism for me, but these diving into these books of practical tips and hard-earned advice have really helped me develop my own philosophy toward art and work. One book I’m working through at the moment is Make Your Art No Matter What by Beth Pickens, which is crammed full of helpful information and philosophical approaches guided by everything from modern psychology to ancient Jewish wisdom. It’s a great book so far, but the second chapter was what prompted me to write this post. It’s a chapter simply titled “Work,” and it delves into all the ways our hectic capitalistic work schedule fucks with our abilities to create.

Here’s a hard truth I’m learning: if you want to create good art, get a day job. I’m not kidding.

If you want to create unadulterated, pure art, free from the expectations of corporations and The Man™, you need to get a day job. Because the second you rely on your art for your income, it’s not yours anymore.

My wife is an artist. I talk about her quite a bit on here. One thing she does for work is commissions. She specializes in doing quick unhinged portraits of people’s fursonas (furry art is a lucrative field, yo). Imagine if you paid $5 of your hard-earned money for a sketch of your character and you got back a lovely sketch of Shrek. You wouldn’t exactly be pleased, would you?

I don’t think I *could* be mad at this, to be fair.

The second people start giving you money for your work, you owe it to them to give the people what they want.

But if you can make a living independently of your art, you can do whatever the fuck you want with it.

And it’s freeing as hell.

When I was younger, I wished I was Taylor Swift famous. And the truth is, when you’re Taylor Swift famous, you have a little more wiggle room. She has enough leverage to do what she wants creatively. If she wanted to pull a Poppy and go full on metal, she totally could.

And here is proof that it would be absolutely badass.

Here’s the thing: most artists don’t have that privilege. No, not even many artists who are now considered legendary. Take Heart, for example, because y’all already know I’ll take advantage of any opportunity I get to fangirl over them.

Jessa Shuts Up About Heart for Five Minutes Challenge (IMPOSSIBLE!)

Back in the 70s, Heart took over the rock world with timeless songs like “Magic Man,” “Crazy On You,” and the classic musical middle finger to creeps and sleazebags known as “Barracuda” (which I channeled recently at karaoke when approached by a fucko). But by the 80s, they were reaching a nadir in their career. The industry had changed around them, and suddenly, music was less about realness and artistry and more about manufactured image. The frontwomen of Heart, the Wilson sisters, faced with the very real threat of irrelevancy and the impending death of their music career, decided to roll the dice with what I call the Liz Phair gambit. Suddenly, the band went from looking like this:

To this:

In order to survive, the band had to sell out. And with great success! They scored their first ever number ones during their bombastic, hairspray-fueled ‘80s run. Everyone knows and loves their output during this era. Who can forget the epic power ballad “Alone,” with a music video that was so influential to me growing up that it shaped my entire aesthetic?

But despite all the earthly riches MTV could offer, it really wasn’t the music they wanted to make.

I’ll let Ann Wilson herself do the heavy lifting of explaining the situation in her own words:

“What made me the most uncomfortable in the 1980s when Heart was doing everybody else’s songs was that the songs seemed like the empty fishbowls that you could pour anybody into and it would be a hit,” she said in an interview. “That’s the ultimate example of me biting the hand that fed me. But, at the same time, I’m a creative artist and I want to be authentic and I made this Faustian bargain to do other people’s songs and get No. 1s.”

Sure, she did what she had to do to achieve the rock star life. But sometimes I wonder if she would have been happier tackling the music industry the way I am in the 21st century, working overnight as a caregiver while laboring over her MacBook during the day to make the music she wanted to make. I wonder if I’d be as miserable as she was in the ‘80s, having to sell my artistic soul to have a viable career.

The truth is, I may never see more than the measly excuse for royalties Spotify pays out. I’ll likely never be more than Kalamazoo famous. But at least I can make the music I want to make. I’m not beholden to anyone. If I wanted to scrap my upcoming project, LORE, in favor of a Weird Al-style parody album, I could get away with it. And that’s all because I have financial stability outside my creative work.

I won’t say it’s an easy life to live. Balancing a full time job on top of any passion projects is not a task for the weak. But if you want to make the stuff you wanna make, it’s the best road to travel. It’s okay to work a dumb job you don’t like for the paycheck if it means not letting your art become that dumb job you don’t like.

Selling out just ain’t worth it.

Technology Marches On: A Musician’s Perspective on AI

This is going to be a controversial post. So hold onto your butts, dear readers.

A few nights ago, Reddit’s r/chapppellroan community was abuzz, and not in a good way. The red-haired pop songstress invited controversy when she asked her fans to create unhinged AI images of her and her cousin.

Also embracing the millennial finger mustache, which I thought we collectively decided to forget about.

The overwhelming response from her fandom was, well, scathing. A lot of fans were disappointed, to say the least.

And they have reason to be. Artificial intelligence is an ethical landmine. I’m not even talking the environmental impact — remember, training a single bot can produce as much CO2 as five cars do in their lifetime. It already has the potential to put visual artists out of work, and honestly, music isn’t far behind. There are already fully AI songs charting. Being wife to a visual artist and a musician myself, you’d think I’d be as strongly against AI technology as Chappell’s fans. And for a long time, you would have been right.

But I’m not anymore. In fact, I think it can be useful — used correctly.

A good musician friend of mine introduced me to a certain software that utilizes AI to create full, complex songs out of, well, whatever you give it. I was hesitant at first, but one night, I was sitting at work bored to death. On a whim, I decided to flesh out some long-abandoned lyrics I’d written and toyed with the software a little. And I was shocked at how well the software could bring my visions to life. It hit me that I could use this technology to break through writer’s block. After all, according to the software’s terms of service, everything you beep-boop is yours to do whatever you want with. I could flesh out entire demos using AI!

And I can repeatedly listen to my own music *like never before!*

Let me be clear — I don’t support simply releasing what the software spits out. I think it’s disingenuous to put something out into the world and claim it’s yours when all you did was punch a few buttons. But I don’t see an issue with using it to glean ideas and visualize what you actually want to create. It’s the same concept for visual artists. Use AI to generate some poses or brainstorm ideas, but at the end of the day, your art is what you create yourself with your chosen medium.

I know it’s really easy for bad actors to use AI for insidious purposes, and I can’t argue that. Sure, making cute realistic neon owl families with AI is innocent enough, but what about Joe Biden and Donald Trump swordfighting with their penises? We have the technology to make a very convincing image of that…atrocity, and publishing it to social media has the potential to damage real people. For that reason, I think there needs to be significantly more legislation surrounding AI (or people are going to develop some really wild ideas about American politics).

Like people believing this man can *actually* shred.

Still, I don’t think AI is an entirely bad thing. It’s a tool like anything else, and every time a new creative tool comes out, people will declare it the enemy of true art. Painter J. M. W. Turner once said “This is the end of Art. I am glad I have had my day.” This quote was spoken in 1839 and is referring to the daguerreotype. But we still have painters to this day. And now that the technology exists, you can’t put the genie back in the lamp. Like it or not, AI will be a huge part of our future. As the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights succinctly put it:

AI has the potential to help our communities, but if [people] aren’t equipped to successfully enter the future of work, they will not reap the benefits.

In other words, now that it exists, it’s a necessary evil, and folks will have to learn how to interact with it one way or another, lest risk being left behind.

I’m not a believer in black and white thinking. I think there are way too many gray areas in our everyday life, and I think the use of AI is one such gray area. There are many ways to use it ethically, and there are just as many ways to misuse it for sinister purposes. At the end of the day, I don’t think Chappell should be cancelled for wanting to experiment with it.

Let’s be real though, is Chappell even *cancelable?*

Use it or don’t, just be excellent to each other. And for the love of God, do not generate that penis-swordfighting image.

(And if you do, please do not show me, thanks.)

Serving Glimmers: How Art and Performance Can Save Lives

I had a realization a while back — one of the reasons I pursued music therapy was because it looked “good.” It seemed like a noble profession, using music to improve people’s lives in a meaningful, measurable way. I’d tell people I was studying music therapy and it was an instant “Ah yes, I can trust her, as she is clearly a good person.” All my boyfriends’ moms loved me for it, and strangers would tell me what I’m doing is so beautiful, so kind. It may just be playing guitar for some kid in a hospital, but to that kid, you’re a hero! And who doesn’t want to be a hero, you know?

I think I have a hero complex, and I think that’s what’s prevented me from jumping headfirst into performance instead. I always wanted to be a hero. I wanted to help people. And if I became a rock star, who would I be helping except my own selfish desires?

The typical perception of pretty much everybody is that performing and the arts are just little “extras.” They’re nothing but fun little distractions, right? No one needs a movie or a comic book or music to live.

QUICK! GET HIM THE LATEST TAYLOR SWIFT ALBUM!

What I’m slowly realizing is that, while we don’t need the arts to live, we absolutely need the arts to really live.

When I moved to Kalamazoo, I searched frantically for work. I would have taken damn near anything, but I wanted to try finding a job involving music. And lo and behold, a trivia company was looking for a music bingo host in my area. And I mean, getting to essentially be part-DJ, part-game show host every night?

I love what I do. It’s a great gig. But for a while, I was feeling like what I did didn’t really matter in the long run. People come into the bar, play music bingo, and leave, going on to live their own lives. I imagine there are probably nurses and firefighters in the audience, and what I do must seem so inconsequential compared to what they deal with every day. And I think those thoughts were starting to wear on me, because I got complaints from one of the bars I work at that I wasn’t “engaging enough.” At first I was angry, because what do you mean I’m not good enough?! But then I realized maybe I’m not giving it my all, and maybe that was because I felt like my job wasn’t important.

So I determined that this show would be my best show yet. I dressed just short of a full drag queen getup, picked some banger categories, and drank enough caffeine to kill a horse. I promised myself I’d socialize the whole time, even if I wanted to sit down. I even moved the chair so I wouldn’t be tempted to just sit down. I was going to give this show my all.

Then, something amazing happened. Sometimes, when you put good vibes out into the universe, the stars align and give you exactly what you need in that moment. What I needed was a glimmer.

Everyone knows what triggers are, but I recently saw that someone coined a term for the opposite phenomenon — glimmers. These are the tiny moments that make life worth living. I experience a glimmer every time I laugh with my wife, or hug my girlfriend, or hear my parents say they’re proud of me. They’re what being alive is all about. They’re little moments of pure joy, which was exactly what I needed.

I walked into the bar to an array of balloons. It was an older couple’s 55th anniversary, and I was going to be hosting music bingo smack dab in the middle of it. Thankfully, the couple was cool about me coming to blast disco at them and even joined in the game, along with many of the other folks in attendance. The older woman who was celebrating her anniversary came up to me and told me that her and her husband’s song was “You’re Still the One” by Shania Twain. And anyone who knows me knows I never miss an opportunity to play Shania Twain.

Tangentially related fact: I was so obsessed with her as a small child, I’d draw pictures of her and not my mom. (Yes, my mom was a little jealous.)

When intermission came, the bar dimmed the lights, leaving only the hanging Christmas lights to illuminate the room. I cued up the song and introduced the couple to the entire bar. Then, everyone gathered around the couple with their phone flashlights. Seeing all of their friends and family surround them in a sea of twinkling lights actually made me tear up a little. The family would remember this moment for the rest of their lives.

A moment I helped make happen.

It’s easy to dismiss entertainment as an opium of the masses, even more so than religion, as Marx famously said. But I’d argue that entertainment is as important as the STEM fields, just in a completely different way. Sure, a particular song may be insignificant to you, but that song could have been the one thing that stopped someone from taking their own life. There’s a reason for this album’s existence. I know people who stay alive because they want to see what happens next in their favorite video game franchise. The arts and media provide those small glimmers that keep people going.

So maybe I will go all-in on being an entertainer and creator. Because someone somewhere needs my music. Someone somewhere needs a fun game night at the local bar. Someone somewhere is reading my writings about mental health and my own personal journey and feels less alone because of it. Artists, writers, musicians, video game developers, game show hosts — they’re all heroes in a unique but important way. Entertainment and art communicate ideas, and more than that, hope.

That’s why I do what I do.

Creating, For the Love of It

What is your favorite hobby or pastime?

Art.

It’s something that comes so naturally to us as kids, but for some reason, the urge to draw and color and make cool stuff gets kicked out of us by society.

I remember briefly working as a paraprofessional in a special education classroom at an elementary school. There was a kid with a severe disability but a huge imagination, one of my favorite students I’d had the pleasure of working with. During coloring time, when he went to color the snowman picture he’d been given, he made it pink! I loved the creativity, but the teacher…not so much. He got in trouble for coloring the snowman pink, and I got in trouble for letting him.

This song is a true story.

I think stories like that are a huge part of why adults don’t indulge themselves in creative endeavors. If strict teachers don’t kill that spark, the crushing weight of capitalism will. We’re constantly bombarded with messages that we need to monetize whatever it is we’re passionate about doing, or else there’s no sense in doing it. If you love playing video games, better stream it and get followers. If you love baking, gotta sell all those pastries. And if you’re an artist, if you’re not getting paid to make art, what’s the point?

But when I create art, I don’t do it with the intention to sell. I don’t take commissions (unless someone asks really nicely). I don’t even care if the stuff I make looks good, really. Because I don’t care about making money with my art.

Yeah, not making any money with this masterpiece.

So why do I do it?

Because I really like it!

I’ve always loved doodling pictures of various characters I created, or making little comics. It’s just how I relax. Some nights, after a long day of work, I like to grab my iPad and just draw whatever comes to mind. It’s so freeing to not have to answer to anyone artistically.

When I create music, I do so with the intention of performing or recording it to share at some point. I consider myself a professional musician, so I treat it like a job. But because of that, music is not as relaxing as it could be, because I’m constantly thinking about such things. Will people like this song? Will it get streams? Will playing it live make for a great show, or is it a complete snoozefest?

“This one’s really gonna knock the socks off ‘em.”

With art, I do it for me and me only, because I love it. I’ve talked about how “amateur” comes from the Latin root for “love.” I consider myself an amateur artist, not because I’m particularly bad (I’m not great either), but because I don’t treat it as a profession. I do it out of sheer love.

I think everyone needs a hobby they don’t monetize, something that’s for them and them only. I hope you find yours, and when you do, may nothing steal that spark of joy it gives you.

The Art Arc (And What That Means For the Blog)

I know, I know. I announce changes like, every month in this blog, and nothing ever sticks. It’s the ADHD, I swear. My commitment issues have commitment issues. But I have a good feeling this one’s gonna last.

There is now an art section on my blog!

I took up painting recently as a way to deal with stress, and realized pretty quickly that I’m not too bad for a beginner. I wanted a place to share my creations with the world without bogging down my social media with endless posts of paintings, so I created a separate space for art here!

What does that mean for the blog? Not a whole lot, except I might post the occasional WIP or finished creation in lieu of a normal post. But rest assured, I’ll still be writing like crazy, especially now that my classes are finished (freaking finally). I already have some awesome fiction and nonfiction stuff lined up to share, and as always, I’ll be posting my thoughts and musings on current events and my weird life.

I’ll leave you with my first ever oil painting, “Sunflower,” inspired by my cat (who else?!).

He’s a good model, but don’t tell him I said that.

As always, if you enjoyed this post, feel free to support the blog by donating on CashApp ($TheJessaJoyce) or Venmo (@jessjsalisbury). Any amount is greatly appreciated!