I Want to Study Art but Just Wish I Could Get a Job with It
Sometimes I do satire....
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved art. Drawing, painting, sculpting, drama, music, creative writing, design–I love all of it. These were the courses that got me through high school, and I would love to keep studying art in college. That was before I knew, though, that there are literally no jobs in the arts. If I major in art I’ll have to live my life in abject poverty, wondering where I’m going to get my next meal.
Now, I know a lot of people work in the arts. It’s a trillion dollar industry and the third biggest sector of the economy, but that doesn’t mean I can get a job with MY art degree. It just means that millions of other people have gotten jobs with their art degrees. And just because those people are thriving in a field that brings them and others meaning and joy doesn’t mean it will do the same for me. I have to prepare myself for the fact that even though there are countless opportunities to work in the arts, there are clearly no jobs you can do with an art degree.
I know I can’t get a job with an art degree because my uncle told me so last Thanksgiving. “You want to major in art?” he said with a laugh. “What are you gonna do with that?” and then he glanced at my dad and said, “This one’s gonna be livin’ in your basement.” It’s not just my uncle. I hear this from lots of people with no experience or expertise in the arts, so it must be true. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that art and design occupations are growing as fast as the rest of the economy and have an above average entry level salary, but that must be wrong. I can either trust them or Brandon from high school’s dad on Facebook who says tech school is the ticket. I guess I’ll just have to choose between computer information systems and welding, because there are no jobs in the arts.
I was thinking about this the other day when I was waiting for the post credit sequence of Deadpool & Wolverine, a movie that just made a billion dollars and employed nearly 1000 artists with backgrounds in areas like costume and makeup design, art, sound, special effects, visual effects, videography, animation, music, and set design. I thought to myself, “These art majors got jobs. It really sucks that I’ll never be able to get one because there just aren’t any jobs in the arts.”
Taylor Swift is an artist with a pretty good job, but I can’t expect to be Taylor Swift OR any of the thousands and thousands of choreographers, backup dancers, musicians, scene designers, lighting designers, videographers, or photographers employed by her and other musicians like her. Those seem like great jobs in the arts, so it’s really too bad that none of those are available to arts majors.
Living in my parents’ basement won’t be too bad. At least I’ll have video games to play. I do love video games, partially because they are an inherently artistic enterprise that involve master storytelling, expertise in illustration, animation, writing, and music. No jobs there either, though, I’m guessing… even if it does generate a half a trillion dollars in revenue every year, and it’s the size of television, movies, and music combined. It would be so nice if there were jobs there for me, but there aren’t because there aren’t any jobs in the arts.
I mean, I guess I could do the smart thing and just go study business, where there are countless jobs. That way I could learn to make money … by marketing, selling, and resourcing the products made by so many artists.
See here for other humor writing from Ryan Martin.
The book I didn’t read titled “Do what you love the money will follow” haunted me until I got a job in the arts and tried to help others to do the same. Look for a mentor- study art- the job will show up.