I'm a artist, should i make the move???

[svetik]

Originally Posted by RVD90277

whoa, lots of questions. afaik, nobody works in seattle and lives in portland. they would just move.

3d modeling is hard work and the most of the jobs aren't 9-5 quiet cushy type jobs where you can work and then go home and have a whole separate life as an artist.

unfortunately jobs that pay well generally take a lot of work. this means that if you want a high paying job, you will likely have to take classes in web design and then work lots of long hours for a few years before you start making decent money at it. you probably won't be able to do much outside of work other than sleep.

from your posts, i think the type of job that would keep you happy in terms of your work/life balance are the low paying jobs. they aren't too stressful (usually, although every job has it's moments) and the hours will be fairly flexible, and you can focus on your art and only work to pay your bills. these are jobs at starbucks, etc. but even those jobs require a lot out of you.

You are so wrong about if you think low pay jobs are flexible. When was the last time did you work at low pay job yourself ??? Number one all the low income jobs only part time with 0 benefits, second when they do a shift schedule they want you to be available any time since scheduling changes every week, third you work like a horse on your feet lifting heavy stuff and most likely will end up with injury or harm your health, 4th management does not give a crap abt you if something doesn't go well for them, they can lay you off anytime they want when it's slow or when they want save money for the corporate office. I am not even talking about luck of the respect. A lot of time when they know you are disparate they just like to play a games with you. P.S. most of this jobs like to hire youngest not a mature adult.

[Inkpoe]

Originally Posted by svetik

You are so wrong about if you think low pay jobs are flexible. When was the last time did you work at low pay job yourself ??? Number one all the low income jobs only part time with 0 benefits, second when they do a shift schedule they want you to be available any time since scheduling changes every week, third you work like a horse on your feet lifting heavy stuff and most likely will end up with injury or harm your health, 4th management does not give a crap abt you if something doesn't go well for them, they can lay you off anytime they want when it's slow or when they want save money for the corporate office. I am not even talking about luck of the respect. A lot of time when they know you are disparate they just like to play a games with you. P.S. most of this jobs like to hire youngest not a mature adult.

I have to respectfully disagree... you can't really generalize all low pay jobs as being bad.

1.) Starbucks baristas are not allowed to work more than 38 hours a week... and yet, they get benefits-- great benefits, I might add. All they have to do is: work more than 20 hrs a week. When I was working at the Bon, I only had to work 26 hrs a week to get benefits (now that its Macy's, I'm sure the set up is different). Same for REI. There are stores or services company require 32 hours to qualify for benefits-- it all depends on the company. Sure, there's some where you can work 40 hours a week and have lousy benefits... or where you can work PT and benefits are still no good. It all depends...

2.) I only had difficulties with ONE job in RE: scheduling... and I only had to talk to managers about that to rectify the situation. Communication is key. Again, it all depends on the companies.

3.) Sorry that it happened to you... but yet again... You can't really prescribe your experience to *all* jobs. Work injuries, falls, et. c can and does happen everywhere... but not all jobs are physically laborious.

4.) My experiences been mostly positive with management. The one where it was pretty bad... well, the entire environment was toxic, you had both managements and employees playing games and being stupid. Which was unfortunate because it was client dependent service job (aiding Deaf/Blind clients) and there were clients that got hurt because of someone's stupidity and/ or bad judgement.

P.S. My experience wasn't that they preferred young bucks. If anything, they didn't like them young because of the unreliability.

[pw72]

But back to art. Seattle and Portland have thriving art communities. Whether you can make a living with this is certainly an unanswered question. But you can't go wrong with these two cities when it comes to your vocation.

[NewtoSD?]

I think you need a ton of drive to be an artist man. No different than being an attorney, an accountant, or a salesman. But if holding a job is too stressful for you, maybe it's time to evaluate just how you deal with stress. As other people have mentioned, relying on art fulltime is going to be equally as stressful and will require equal drive.

I say if you are truly prepared for that challenge and Seattle resonates with you, go for it. It's important to live and be where you feel most comfortable and inspired in life. But be sure that's the real reason you're doing it. You don't want try to fix one problem by doing something that doesn't even begin to address it.

[NewtoSD?]

Originally Posted by Inkpoe

I have to respectfully disagree... you can't really generalize all low pay jobs as being bad.

1.) Starbucks baristas are not allowed to work more than 38 hours a week... and yet, they get benefits-- great benefits, I might add. All they have to do is: work more than 20 hrs a week. When I was working at the Bon, I only had to work 26 hrs a week to get benefits (now that its Macy's, I'm sure the set up is different). Same for REI. There are stores or services company require 32 hours to qualify for benefits-- it all depends on the company. Sure, there's some where you can work 40 hours a week and have lousy benefits... or where you can work PT and benefits are still no good. It all depends...

2.) I only had difficulties with ONE job in RE: scheduling... and I only had to talk to managers about that to rectify the situation. Communication is key. Again, it all depends on the companies.

3.) Sorry that it happened to you... but yet again... You can't really prescribe your experience to *all* jobs. Work injuries, falls, et. c can and does happen everywhere... but not all jobs are physically laborious.

4.) My experiences been mostly positive with management. The one where it was pretty bad... well, the entire environment was toxic, you had both managements and employees playing games and being stupid. Which was unfortunate because it was client dependent service job (aiding Deaf/Blind clients) and there were clients that got hurt because of someone's stupidity and/ or bad judgement.

P.S. My experience wasn't that they preferred young bucks. If anything, they didn't like them young because of the unreliability.

My experience with low paying jobs?

Working Sunday nights, $.25 raises, uneducated middle managers actually believing that slicing lemons truly is the most important thing in the world at that moment, uneducated middle managers attempting to talk like a "professional", hours cut without notice, greeeeat 401K benefits.

LOL good god, what is good about working these service oriented jobs? Flexibility my a--. I've worked plenty of them, from restaurants to movie theatres, to grocery stores. If they tell you you're working your day off, you're working. And you work 10 times as hard as someone with a job that requires a college degree.

[Huckleberry3911948]

not renewing to save money is a horrible horrible mistake.

[RVD90277]

I think the flexibility that I'm talking about is that if you take a job in corporate America, I can tell you right now that your work hours will basically be around 8:30am-6pm monday - friday. sure, some jobs have some slightly more flexible hours but this is pretty much what you will experience.

if you are an actor, musician, artist, etc. and want to go to a show, audition, etc. at 2pm on a wednesday, you're going to have to use vacation days, PTO (personal time off), etc.

as you can see, it's not sustainable to do much more than your full time job.

however, if you work at starbucks, you can have the flexibility to say that you will work evenings and weekends and have your days free to go to auditions, shows, etc. even if you work all day on mon, wed, fri, sat, sun you can schedule all of your daytime appointments at tues, thurs.

this is at least true of every company that i have worked for in the past 15 years. i didn't not have the option of working evenings and weekends and take every tues and thurs off. but at mcdonalds, starbucks, home depot, etc...they have no problem with that.

[annawie]

That depends.. are you confident that you'll make at least $2000 a month to cover your expenses (and pay tax?) You'll need about $1600 per month to cover your own expenses and that doesn't include your production costs as an independent artist.

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