What does a professional visual artist actually look like?
In Season 3, Episode 31 of Art Crush, hosts Fi Marks and Paula Telizyn tackle the pervasive and damaging myths that surround the creative life. From the societal expectation of wacky outfits to the romanticized—and toxic—tropes of the “starving” or “tortured” artist, the public is full of preconceived notions about what it means to create art for a living.
Fi and Paula candidly discuss how personal style impacts your art business, and why you do not need to choose between being a true creative and a sharp entrepreneur.
It is time to ditch the “starving artist” label permanently, stop waiting for a seat at the establishment’s table, and build your own damn table.
Key Takeaways
- The Power of Personal Branding: How your clothing and presentation act as a bridge or a barrier in the professional art world.
- Killing the “Starving Artist” Trope: Why struggling for survival actually suppresses creativity, and why we must drop the word “starving” from our vocabulary.
- Business vs. Creativity: Dispelling the myth that you cannot run a successful, profitable art business while leading an authentic creative life.
- Overcoming Sexism in the Arts: Unpacking historical biases and why women artists must stop looking for external validation to be successful.
- Building Your Own Table: Rejecting outdated rules and forging your own path to success and visibility.
Upcoming Exhibition: The Wild Within
Join The 51% collective (Fi Marks, Paula Telizyn, Jela Prancic, and Susan Gardner) for their upcoming show, The Wild Within, opening Friday, October 23rd at Artcore Gallery in Derby, UK!
Subscribe to Art Crush so you don’t miss our upcoming September episodes, where we will be building this exhibition in public and sharing exactly what it takes to put a major show together.
Art Crush season 3 episode 31
00:00:00 Speaker 1: Welcome to Art crush with artist Fi Marks and Paula Telizyn where we talk about being an artist, being a professional artist, and being a woman who’s an artist and more.
00:00:22 Speaker 1: Hello. Fee.
00:00:24 Speaker 2: Hi, Paula.
00:00:26 Speaker 1: today we’re going to talk about, a little bit of the mythos around being an artist in our last podcast episode. fee had mentioned that she was told that if somebody had to think of what an artist looked like, they would think of fee if there was a dictionary photo and these are.
00:00:46 Speaker 2: Please don’t, please don’t take that that you have to now emulate my look. It is absolutely no.
00:00:54 Speaker 1: This this is true, but I think that it opens an interesting question on what it means to be an artist in how we define artists, how we think about artists, even how the public thinks about artists because we are fed a lot of information on what things are, how they are, and all of that through our media consumption. Whether you watch movies or not, we get it through social media. We get it through conversations, we get it through books, we get it through all of this stuff because our society is made up of ideas. So this is an audio podcast. You can’t see what fee looks like, but she has a wonderful fashion sense that is very uniquely hers. I’m not being sarcastic. Fee. like just amazing fee wears whatever the hell she feels like. That looks incredible, but it’s very curated.
00:01:46 Speaker 2: Indeed it is. people who say, oh, I don’t think about what I wear. I just throw on what whatever’s lying around. I’m like, but you’ve made a decision. And if you’ve made a decision that, you don’t want to stand out, you don’t want people to look at you, then you will go for the camouflage look that you just sort of blend in. people talk about the uniform for work, you know, that people that particularly for men and women, if they would do a certain type of job, they’re meant to wear a suit. this was one of the arguments about why you needed a school uniform. So it prepared everybody to go off and work in the civil service where you’d be wearing a blazer and tie and girls would wear skirts and boys would wear trousers. I hated wearing school uniform. I loved it when my my child was at school because it made my job a lot easier. But I felt it really suppressed, individuality and how you wanted to look. And I did as much as I could to try and, um, within the rules, make my uniform my own. even in sixth form, we had to wear a uniform of sorts. We were so between sixteen and eighteen, we were still expected, the girls were expected to wear no patterns, plain skirts in either grey or black and then plain tops in the school colours that were red, white or black. I would do my best to find the quirkiest grey skirt I could I remember um, having one that had braces. I think you call those suspenders? Paula.
00:03:38 Speaker 3: That’s right.
00:03:40 Speaker 2: I would have my hair in plats and I would wear wacky bobbles in my hair. but I do remember getting told off because I had some stud earrings in when I was probably about seventeen by the head teacher at that point I thought, this is just ridiculous. I also came across conflict when I was teaching about what I wore to work. It was very different what I was wearing when I was in London. It was much freer when I moved up to Derbyshire. Again, people were expected to look a certain way. And I hasten to add, I was always immaculately dressed. I do not go around looking scruffy. I did not at all. It would be that perhaps I wore bold colours and I didn’t wear the traditional suit or trousers or whatever. so yes, it’s interesting to me. The way I’ve dressed has always been a big part of my identity. I think we mentioned quite a long time ago, Paula, it was in one of our earlier episodes how we had quite a debate within the fifty one percent about the image that we wanted to portray as artists. I no want no longer, even though I do wear dungarees, I’m not saying I don’t wear dungarees or overalls. Um, I do, but for our exhibitions and for public appearances, that was not the image we wanted to portray. And we came up with the idea that We would use velvet and we could tailor it and use it to create our own style. we’re not going to look all the same, but we are going to give that idea of luxury and lusciousness, and dressing up, reviving, dressing up when you go to galleries in the theater and all those things when you go out for a meal. so we did have a big discussion about that and yeah. I think even as I said, people who, say, oh, I hate shopping, I just go to buy the same thing. I buy the same black t shirts, black jeans. That’s all I wear. They’ve made a decision. That is the image that they have chosen to portray.
00:06:03 Speaker 1: so as artists, the public generally expects us to sort of be different. That’s one of the expectations and thoughts that people have, that an artist will potentially have pink hair or will dress differently in bolder colors or unusual pieces or whatever. that’s one of those things that, that we have. I dress a lot more conservatively than fee, but my hair has always been a whackadoo color or various colors and various lengths and everything else. because I know when I’ve stepped out and been a little bit different in my clothing as I was last year, a lot more. there’s a lot less acceptance. People notice and Canadians are polite, but also very passive aggressive. So I found that it just was not the right move for me. I’m perfectly comfortable walking around with bright pink hair, but I’m not perfectly comfortable walking around in loud pants and things like that. it’s just the way things are. But yet, if somebody said that Paul is an artist, people would go, yeah, absolutely. She’s got tattoos and she has pink hair and she keeps odd hours and whatever and always has paint on her. She’s an artist it fits the idea. But the other idea about artists too, is that perhaps we’re all tortured. we are struggling with mental health and we have too many ideas and we’re frazzled and our hair is half sticking up and half flat plastered down. And we have three hundred half empty cups of coffee. But there’s paint brushes and some of them. That’s also an image that people have of artists, disorganized chaos, intense emotions, and um, half made things.
00:07:41 Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Paul. I agree, I hate to bring up the flaky word, but, uh, there is a belief I think we’ve mentioned it before, this is why there’s been such a conflict between the ideas of artists running their own art business and being a creative because it has been, you know, felt that you can’t do both. You can’t be creative and you can’t run a business because those skills are a completely at loggerheads. And that’s one thing that we are working at trying to remedy that you can be taken seriously as a woman, as an artist, have a good business and definitely lead a creative life.
00:08:29 Speaker 1: I know, when I’ve talked to a lot of artists, even calling themselves an artist is a challenge for a lot of people because it means accepting that you could be perceived as flaky or weird or different or whatever, but it’s almost like a change in status, societal status, to say that you’re an artist. Right. So the flaky thing is a really important thing to acknowledge. I know I struggled with that myself going back and forth, about calling myself an artist. it was the perception of the people around me. If I said I ran a tech company and I was a programmer, people were like, oh, you must be smart. When I say I’m an artist, people are like, oh, do you eat paste too kind of thing. There is that perception of one person is doing important, smart, intelligent work, and the other person is a silly head who makes sometimes really glorious works. that is a really challenging thing to live with until you realize at some point who gives a shit. Our jobs as artists are also to educate the people around us through our sharing on social media, through our marketing, through our talking about our art. And if the people around you choose to believe something, you can’t make them disbelieve it. But you can just present yourself the way you want to be seen and allow it to be taken in or not, as people will do. You can’t control what other people are thinking.
00:10:00 Speaker 3: Exactly.
00:10:00 Speaker 2: as somebody who spends time, loves fashion, curates how they look. I just said I no longer want to look like a kids TV presenter, because I know that was the look that I was going for. very loud colors, very whackadoo, big dungarees, big baggy tops. I was hiding behind that. part of the reason that I went for that image was I felt that people didn’t take me seriously. I was hiding behind this image because I didn’t think I was smart enough. I didn’t think I was good looking enough, but this was an image that I felt comfortable with. and so consciously, over the last few years, I’ve changed that. I still like bright colors. I still would choose bright colors over more muted tones. But that is not what I want to look at because I want to be taken seriously as an artist. And I thought, I cannot be taken seriously, in the artist world, in the place of the business, if this is what I look like, because I will be dismissed. nobody will be able to hear what I’m saying. Let alone process it because all they’re doing is looking at this. What is she wearing? you have to acknowledge that. Do you want people to do that? And it’s finding that happy medium. just like we say, when you’re finding your own style as an artist, you have to try out other things. Like Paula said, she tried, wearing wacky pants and big Hawaiian shirts and this, that and the other. and then went, no, that’s not me. Probably for similar reasons, as I’ve just said about, I no longer wanted to be seen as a children’s TV presenter. my attitude towards my work has changed. I take my artwork and what we do very, very seriously now I can’t do that if I’m dressed in a way that contradicts that, but I do not want to be taken seriously in a business suit because I’m a creative. So you’ve got to find your own way. We’re not trying to fit in a box, but we want to be taken seriously. So how how do we manage that in our appearance? How do we do that?
00:12:32 Speaker 1: I think that that’s a question each person has to ask themselves and where they live. Because I know if I was living in, for example, Toronto, which is a massive city with a huge variety of people, I could dress how I want and nobody would bat an eye, right. So I could be as wacky or as creative with my looks as I care to be. And it would just be another Tuesday for everybody else. location does play a huge role in how we dress and comport ourselves to be perceived the way we want to be perceived. And it’s finding that balance. I think you said a very important thing, though, that you were hiding behind your clothing for a lot of reasons. And I think that clothing can be a tool that can be a barrier, or it can be a bridge inviting people in and having conversations and feeling approachable. So when we think about what we use to judge people as to whether they’re approachable or not, clothing is one of those things. Haircut is another one. Tattoos, piercings, all of that. Do they look dangerous and scary? do they present themselves in a way that says, actually, you’re better off walking around me. Please don’t approach me. those are things that artists also need to take into consideration. I’m not saying one is better than the other because maybe you’re an artist who does outsider art or, graffiti style or break the establishment art. Then you want to have the presentation of you are an establishment breaker. You sure as shit wouldn’t show up in a three piece suit going, look at my graffiti art that depicts the fall of the government, right? Wearing a suit. You just wouldn’t. Unless you want to make people talk a little bit.
00:14:18 Speaker 2: Well, exactly. I think that’s a personal choice because you’ve got to weigh up, okay, if I wear a suit, I’m going to be perceived as this. But by the same token, we want to, Challenge the establishment, and say, well, just because I’m choosing to wear a suit today doesn’t mean that I’m a different person than I was when I turned up in my cut off shorts and a vest top. So I think, yes, you can. If you are a graffiti artist who wants to wear a suit and you do it in your own way, it’s a free choice. Do it because why should you look like a caricature of a graffiti artist?
00:15:06 Speaker 1: that’s really interesting because you know what? I immediately had a sense of what they should be. And I never stopped to question why am I thinking that? So you can see how pervasive these established so-called rules are that we run our lives by. so we started talking about fashion, but in general, talking about what we think both as artists and even as the general public, what we think artists are like, what their lives are like, the sense of, we’ve talked about Van Gogh before, but because Van Gogh is so pervasive with his work everywhere and his story everywhere. The idea that the artist has to be tortured to create good work is one that I hate this myth. The other one is the artist must suffer. They must be starving to make good work. Only tortured and starving artists create art that’s worthy of discussion. As somebody who has experienced with being very short of money at times, I can tell you that the minute you are worried more about where’s your next meal coming from and can I pay rent? You are not thinking creatively. You are not thinking about anything but survival. You cannot create good works when you don’t know if you will be housed the next month, later kind of thing, or if it feels like you won’t know, right? Like it’s, it’s really hard. But the public has this enduring perception that to be an artist is to suffer and struggle. in my experience, suffering and struggling is at cross purposes to being creative and telling good stories through whatever medium is you work with.
00:16:44 Speaker 2: that is something that we have decided as a collective to dispel. I mean, there are still organizations that are, reclaiming the starving artists there. I know I’ve seen loads of, organizations called the starving artists or, you know, not so much suffering, but starving. they’ve sort of reclaimed. But I don’t think we’ve got to the point where we can do that. with any change in society, you almost like have to go. You have to build up and then reclaim. I think, the idea of success in the art world and what it looks like is a huge, huge subject because success is what we’re told. Success is like we were when we were in school, that you were only intelligent and successful if you passed exams, which we now know that is not true, There are plenty of very intellectual people who have taught themselves, who have educated themselves, have traveled, have done different things, and in fact, they are more worldly and more knowledgeable than a lot of people who live in academia. So people are beginning to accept that. I mean, there’s still a big pressure in the education world, which is not our place at the moment to talk about. But, it’s the same with artists. Everything is on a spectrum. And the more that we accept this is what artists look like. This is how they behave. They’ve got no money. They’re suffering for their art. They’re miserable. you can’t rely on them. The more we fight to dispel that, the better. And then we can reclaim those names.
00:18:40 Speaker 1: I think that we should take the word starving and throw it out entirely. Because even in the effort to claim starving as not a badge of honor, but certainly as a thing saying I’m not starving anymore or no more starving artists or stop starving artists or whatever. You’re still in that mindset that to be an artist has starving in it. And I think that we should just drop those all together.
00:19:06 Speaker 2: There’s no other profession. Can you think of any other profession that’s got starving in front of it?
00:19:12 Speaker 1: Exactly. You can’t because if if a plumber.
00:19:15 Speaker 3: Starving bankers.
00:19:17 Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Starving real estate agent, you know, realtor, starving car salesman. Like you just don’t have that. It’s it’s ridiculous.
00:19:27 Speaker 2: Just artists, isn’t it?
00:19:29 Speaker 1: And I think we should just throw that out. Just get rid of it. We don’t need it. we don’t even need the opposite, the thriving, successful, whatever. I think that’s still living in the starving mentality.
00:19:40 Speaker 3: Yeah. One hundred percent.
00:19:42 Speaker 1: we need to adjust and redefine. And we do this by doing in the making of our art, in the showing up as artists, however, we choose to show up intentionally, as fee has said, making those decisions in how we market our work and how we talk about ourselves and our art and our shows and our bodies of work and our thinking and whatever. Those things spread out, ripple out through the general public and make change It’s really hard for one person to make change by themselves if they’re not already a celebrity influencer or whatever, and at that point they’re useless. but it is very easy for us as individuals to make change as a collective. it’s not that we all need to put out the same ideas, but we can say, if I put out this idea and it ripples out to twelve people around me, and then ten of them like that idea and they share it, that little idea will spread farther without us knowing. It’s none of our business to know where it goes. but we do have more power than we think. We don’t have to say, well, I guess I’m an artist now, so I can be flaky. No, you show up how you choose to show up intentionally and help people redefine who artists are and what they can be and what their potential is through True how you choose to show up?
00:21:08 Speaker 2: So thought for the day for the listeners is have a think, do you conform to what you think people perceive as living in The Artist’s way? Or do you think you are finding your own way? What are you comfortable about telling people? Not only what you wear, but how you present. Paul and I spent a lot of time talking to female artists who we feel are still waiting for permission to be successful and understand what success is for them. So they are frightened of the word success, which is really interesting. as women, we are still fighting, as well as being artists, that idea that we are allowed to be successful, that we are allowed to make money, it’s still going back to the sexism throughout history of what being a woman was all about. And let us just remind everybody at this point that a lot of what we were told is history is not actually true. it’s been told by the white Victorian male to how they wanted people to conform. This is why we are discovering over and over again female artists who actually were there first.
00:22:33 Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:22:34 Speaker 1: It’s really important also to understand that sexism is not even history. It is going on right now, and we have to unpick what we believe and understand where we have resistance as women in showing up. It’s not even saying there’s room at the table for you as well. Fuck the table. Skip it all together. Go around it. Make your own table. Right. We don’t even need to be like, allowed into spaces. We can create our own spaces. And that’s a huge, huge leap for, women creators to take. Because maybe we just don’t even want to be in the room. We want to just create our own room. And we have to first understand that you can, you can show up, you can be visible, you can sell your work, you can create great art, you can do all of that. And you should you have to give yourself permission. I used to give women permission. You have my permission to go ahead and be successful because they needed it. I’m not doing that anymore. You need to give yourself permission. If you get permission from me, then you’ll always doubt it. You need to give yourself permission to be successful.
00:23:46 Speaker 2: And you’ll only look for permission off somebody else, then?
00:23:49 Speaker 3: Exactly.
00:23:49 Speaker 2: Because you. We all know that if you get given permission for one thing, then that doesn’t mean that you are free, because then you think, well, they said, yes, but what about this person? Yeah. They haven’t said yes. There’s more people who’ve said no. Yeah. yeah. it’s so important. Are we, are you as an artist or as a creative? Are you actually stopping your progress, stopping your success by sort of fulfilling that prophecy that we can’t do it by accepting less?
00:24:22 Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:24:23 Speaker 1: And by deciding what an artist’s life should look like based on everything that you’ve taken in, in the media.
00:24:31 Speaker 2: artists come in all shapes and forms. You know, look at Paula and I, we are very different, but our belief system is the same. And that’s what’s important.
00:24:42 Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So I think this wraps up this episode of Art crush. Unless there’s something else you want to add. Fee.
00:24:49 Speaker 3: I don’t think.
00:24:50 Speaker 2: So. I think we’ve covered a lot. There’s a lot to process. We don’t want to overload you.
00:24:56 Speaker 1: There’s a lot to process. And as we move into September, so this episode will be airing in September. We are going to bring the fifty one percent back to.
00:25:07 Speaker 3: Our.
00:25:09 Speaker 1: To talk about our upcoming show in Derby, UK in October. opening night is October twenty third, which is a Friday night at Artcore Gallery right in the center of Derby. So make sure that if you are in the UK or are planning to be in the UK, make sure you are in Derby on that. Friday night is going to be a hell of an amazing and fun, show opening where you get a chance to talk with all of us, see the works, experience the wild within. And so make sure that you’ve subscribed to Artcrush so you can get the notifications that a new episode is dropped and you can listen to Jela Prancic and Susan Gardner’s along with myself and Fi Marks talk about our show, our art, the process, and everything else. We are building this in public so that you get a chance to see what it takes to skip the table and make your own damn table, and then show your work at. So thank you very much for listening. We will catch you in the next episode of Art crush. We are available on Spotify, Amazon, Apple Podcasts, Alexa and Google Home devices, as well as connected car devices. In addition to everywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts, new episodes drop every Saturday. We will see you in the next one.
