making money with your art vs. making art you want to make (painters, famous)

[twinkletwinkle22]

I am retired from a career as a photographer, made enough money to live middle class and retire. Retirement achieved more from real estate investments than photography career.

Unlike many artists who make very little money from their art I made good money but it wasn't doing the kind of photography I wanted to. Big deal, almost everyone employed earns their money doing what their employer says to do, not what they want to do (sit around, fish, drink beer lol).

So now retirement means I can create exactly the art I choose to. I still make photographs but choose to paint, something I've been doing part-time for 30 years but now it's a full time obsession. I won several first place ribbons in the past year and was just offered a on-person show at a local gallery. Not a humble-brag, just a marker for where I am now.

The total of sales for my fine art painting is $575 (one painting). Not for this year or last year, total for all years painting.

The painting that sold was in a style (impressionist realist) I no longer paint in, it was a short phase, and I knew the painting would be popular, it won a 3rd place ribbon at a larger gallery with above-average competition.

My point is (if you made it this far) is: if you are looking for satisfaction from your art you need to decide " I want money" or "I want to paint what I want and hell with money and awards". All of the famous painters chose door#2 at the beginning of their careers but you never hear about the artists that made that choice and failed, there are many.

Can you do both? Paint for sales and also paint "fine art"? I can't but maybe other painters can.

Monet, poor for much of his life until success arrived in middle age, painted a lot of paintings for money. His first wife died (perhaps because) he didn't have enough money for medical care. He had small children dependent on him so he had to make money. But when he finally started to sell work he was proud of he went back and bought as many of his early paintings as he could find and destroyed them. One reason you don't see a lot of bad paintings by him.

Some big name writers write books under a different name, for money, because they don't want work done for money to damage their "literary" reputation. I think it's a good idea for artists to do the same thing. Maybe Banksy is an artist who paints landscapes for big $$ and does the Banksy thing for himself/herself.

Do any artists here have 2 different personalities they paint under? One for money and the other as their personal expression of art? Would love to see photos of them. Please post.