Paul Trejo ⋅ Austin , TX University of Texas at Austin ⋅ 40 years experience

Hi Roy,

Thanks for your years of service to the USA. As for a career in the Arts, it may be the most challenging of all. First, the competition is enormous. Many people -- with and without talent -- believe they can enter the field. (It's something like the restaurant business in that regard.)

But if you treat it like a business, your chances are increased. Here's what professional painters do:

1. Become part of a Gallery Exhibit -- or create your own. To create your own, rent an empty store-front in town, and set up your paintings. You never know who might walk in.

2. Find a poet who likes your paintings and will write poems about them. Include the poet's work in your Gallery Exhibits.

3. Find the local acting theaters, and offer to paint background sets for their plays. Work cheap (as actors are often more poverty-stricken than painters).

4. Paint plenty of "homages" to the 20th century greats -- the ones that are easiest to paint for you. They often sell well because of their past fame.

5. Painting portraits of wealthy people is still viable. Andy Warhol's team would first take a photograph of the person, and then Andy would touch up the photo with his unique style. That trick still has wings, if you ask me.

6. Help neighbors paint the rooms in their homes on a part-time basis just to make pin money when sales are at an all time low (and to ensure you always have paints and brushes).

Best wishes for your Artistic future,
--Paul

Barron Evans ⋅ Ann Arbor , MI Customer Experience Change Management ⋅ 30 years experience

Roy...

Foremost, thank you for your service.

Your timing is good, in that both the economy and hiring trendlines (esp. for ex-military) are up. I would encourage exclusively focusing on sourcing professional options where you could leverage your gift set, e.g., advertising, communication agencies, or design shops. If you're not on LinkedIn, I would encourage registering, which would allow you to use certain search features (e.g., geography, title, expertise, etc.) to identify relevant individuals / organizations with which you could solicit guidance specific to those business categories. You don't indicate work preferences, but I'd encourage you to prioritize amongst private sector, public sector, education, not-for-profit (e.g., museums, art centers), etc. - and also - your minimum salary needs. In this way, you can focus efforts, and go in 'eyes wide open' with expectations. As well, be clear on whether relocation from Tampa is an option, and if so, what are your top 4-5 preferred geographies. The final thing I would do (and LinkedIn will require this) is establish a 'selling proposition' for yourself, e.g., what value/benefits can your skills/artistic capabilities provide to a hiring organization. Like a previous comment, going this route provides you the perfect blend of better income realized THROUGH your artistic passion (e.g., writing, painting). Hope this helps... and best wishes for success!

Sarah Bates ⋅ Fallbrook , CA Palomar Community College ⋅ 25 years experience

At the risk of discouraging you, I offer the following advice. My husband is a fine art watercolor painter, I am a freelance writer and published author. We love these occupations. We started our working careers in advertising, but now, neither of us can make a living doing what we love. To find out if your artwork is appealing enough to sell at prices high enough to live on, gather up some of your paintings, make an appointment with a gallery owner and take them in for an evaluation. Ask hard questions. The gallery owner must make a commission from the sale of artists' work, so he or she will be frank with you. If the prospects are good, then paint like a house on fire and start showing your work at local art fairs (where you keep all the sales profits). Artists must take credit cards, so get that set up too. As for writing, the only careers in writing that make money are in advertising, or television and film. For those skills you need writing classes in those occupations. A community college is a good place to start. Journalism? Fiction? Pay is mediocre. So far I am the only "advisor" who works in the fields of your topic. If you would like to discuss this in greater detail, contact me at: jsbates2@sbcglobal.net.

Andrew Jarvis ⋅ Chicago , IL Twisted Media ⋅ 14 years experience

For me, as an artist, it's largely been about finding the balance between doing fine art that you love, and working the angles. You gotta find the angles. For me it was funneling my creativity into web design, which eventually moved into web development. For you it may mean getting into graphic design, advertising, etc. Whatever it is, I suggest you hone your skills in art and writing in such a way as to do that balancing act between something you can market to companies, and do your fine art on the side.

Judy Tomlinson ⋅ Richardson , TX Energy Future Holdings ⋅ 30 years experience

It depends on the skills you have.....you can freelance but that is not consistant. If you want to earn a living in the creative arena, you will need to get a job at an advertising agency or web development company. If you are organized and are good with diagrams and writing steps taken to accomplish a task, pursue technical writing. Some Community colleges offer this as a course. For technical writing, you don't have to be an expert in the field....you just have to know the right questions to ask of the SME (Subject Matter Expert) assigned to help you with the project. Feel free to email me your contact information and we can discuss further. tomlinsonjk@aol.com

David Rogers ⋅ Morrisville , PA Rogers Health Care Consulting, LTD ⋅ 40 years experience

The best way to assess your chance of success is to first determine in your own mind what success really means - money, fame, sustainable income, etc. You indicate that you have sold a few pieces to friends. Try selling a few by hanging in a local restaurant, flea market, etc. Price them at a open market price. Contact an art teacher at a local school who may have sold a few pieces. My wife is an artist and yet her idea of success is the self satisfaction of completing each piece. Your goal is probably much more monetary. Perhaps offering introductory art classes to provide the income while selling what you can is a route for you to take.

Ethan Margalith ⋅ Los Angeles , CA Starving Students ⋅ 48 years experience

Thank you for your service to the country!

Suggest you offer freelance services online and start to build clientele. There are some great websites for this (e.g., Upwork - I have no affiliation).

Best wishes !

Ethan

David Carter ⋅ Saratoga , CA Tesla Motors ⋅ 34 years experience

Hi Roy,

Great advice given from everyone, to which I'll add that if you are proficient with tools like Adobe Illustrator or Microsoft Visio (which you can learn cheaply on www.lynda.com), decent paying jobs are available, often over a remote connection.

As for being an artist, it seems the wider the audience one aims to please, the greater the income potential, but your sense of fullfillment might suffer. This diagram sums up the balancing act we artists face: http://www.harebrained.com/happiness.pdf

I'm a wannabe screenwriter who ended up choosing a tech writing career in order to satsify my desire for steady, decent income, while still thinking of myself as a writer. The game ain't over yet...

If you'd like to chat further, I'm kato@harebrained.com. (Note the correct spelling -- folks get it wrong a lot.)

Cheers,
-Dave

Alan J. Zell ⋅ Portland , OR Attitudes for Selling ⋅ 29 years experience

Roy, You asked a "how high is up" type of question. Can one make a living via doing art or writing? can only be answered "yes & no". There are some, but not many, who do. Whether or not you will become one of those few is, at this time, an unknown.

My suggestion is that you contact the closest SCORE chapter in your area. SCORE offers free consulting for people who what to step into the business world. Go to www.score.org and to "find a local chapter"-- enter your zip code and you'll get a list of the closest chapters/offices.

The need is to create/develop a business plan as, no matter what, it takes money to make money . . . and how long can you support yourself and your business without taking a salary/profit out of the business . . that is until such time as any income from sales comes it, the money goes into the business and not your pocket. Into this one has to put a time value on their work as it takes a multiple (or markup) on one's time to determine what the minimum selling price will be.

As to art, the key is coming up with a style or genre that becomes your "art personalitiy." The problem is that with most creative people, the tendency is to try to do too big a variety vs niching what one does, and, also not getting tired of creating variations of one's niche/style/genre. Then, of course, are there enough people who like your work enough to pay for it and how long will it take to have this happen? That's the BIG unknown.

When it comes to writing variations of the snags as above will apply. In today's book world, there are ways of getting one's book published called POD (print on demand) AND then the costs of creating awareness that the book exists. You can figure, loosely, that the editing, publishing, marketing can run between $20 k and $25 k. That means one has to sell a lot of books to cover these costs. (I speak, btw, as one who has written a book).

In both creative arenas, one will be travelling at a snails pace. That's reality.

So, again, contact SCORE. Their advice is free, confidential and, straight forward.

Al Hope, Sr. ⋅ Water Valley , MS City of Oxford, MS ⋅ 20 years experience

Master Sergeant Stokes,

Head over to the US Department of Labor web at www.bls.org/ooh for more information but the below information will get you started.

Quick Facts: Craft and Fine Artists
2012 Median Pay $44,380 per year
$21.34 per hour
Entry-Level Education High school diploma or equivalent
Work Experience in a Related Occupation None
On-the-job Training Long-term on-the-job training
Number of Jobs, 2012 51,400
Job Outlook, 2012-22 3% (Slower than average)
Employment Change, 2012-22 1,300.

MSG Al E. Hope, Sr. USA (Retired)

Joe Paschall ⋅ Madison , AL nLogic, LLC ⋅ 26 years experience

Assuming you need to maintain some standard of income, you best bet is to pursue a job within your experience and develop the other as an artistic hobby. You always have the option of shifting to art as a primary if things develop, but a lot of your opportunity in art would be driven by your local notoriety so you would need to build significant notoriety before the income stream could be defined.

Lisa Anthony ⋅ Cheshire , CT saint mary's hospital ⋅ 30 years experience

Maybe you can get a job writing and sell paintings on the side ? There are publishing houses which do require artwork for books
Thank you for your service
Lisa