Art Hacks: A Day in the Life of an Artist

 I've been creating art for over a half century and in that time I have developed an inventory of hacks and shortcuts for managing the typical items on the artistic to do list of an everyday artist.  And before we get into specifics let's define a few terms and concepts that require some clarity.

What is an Artist in the context of the Art Hacks discussions?

I think that while many of the Art Hacks tools to organize and navigate the art ecosystem can apply to the "arts and crafts" contingent and to the Art World exclusive club of artists who do *nothing but work on their own *art all day, my experience is that the vast majority of serious artists not only make art but work for a living at something else.

In a future Art Hacks entry I'll further examine the assumptions about who artists are and what we do but for the moment let's use this general description as a baseline.

Time and Money

Time and money are two of the critical components for creating Art.  The following illustration provides a visualization of the many topics and complex relationships artists must navigate and control to maintain a sensible plan for making a go of it.

Future Art Hacks blog entries will provide deeper dives into the open source or free tools, techniques, and resources available to an artist to make the day productive. Needless to say, curating the activities of any given day involves just a few of the things illustrated and everyone will have their own esoteric way of doing things.

Nothing here will manufacture a magic formula for success.  These "art hacks" are aimed at making the creation of art easier and nothing else. Success, profitability, and risk is out of scope.

My previous art hacks entry (how much does it cost to enter a juried art gallery show) is found here.