Day Jobs

The Measure

Art Famous Artists with Day Jobs: Part One

Posted by Corinna Kirsch on Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 11:14 AM

As a profession, “artist” ranks pretty low in terms of financial reward. Most artists schlep their way through menial professions for years before being able to give them up for more rewarding work. Those jobs are not always fun, but sometimes, they influence an artist’s practice. As such, we’ve gathered a list of ten common art world day jobs, listed a few famous artists who’ve held down the position, and given some pros and cons to taking on each one. Friday we’ll reveal part two of the list with ten more. Your future as a Met security guard awaits!
1. Museum security guard
Artists who made this job famous: Wade Guyton, Robert Ryman, and Fred Wilson
Pro: You get to be around art all day, and you get to go home knowing that many artists have done their time, just like you.
Con: Nobody actually enjoys the long hours of standing and staring off into space for hours for low pay.
2. Teacher
Artists who made this job famous: Mark Rothko (primary school), Marilyn Minter (high school), Lisa Yuskavage (continuing education), Sarah Lucas (day care)
Pros: Dealing with all types of people and all types of backgrounds, while navigating your way through bureaucracy will help out when you’re dealing with museums and galleries.
Con: Most full-time teaching positions will end up consuming all of your time; you’ll be lucky if you feel up to working in your studio after the kids get off school.
3. Studio assistant
Artists who made this job famous: Darren Bader (to Urs Fischer), Jeff Koons (to Ed Paschke), Rachel Howard (to Damien Hirst)
Pro: If you’re lucky, you get to work closely with an already famous artist. Eeee! But really, an actual pro: working as a studio assistant gives you a glimpse of how to manage your own career by running a small business.
Cons: Carpal tunnel syndrome. If that doesn’t happen, there’s still no guarantee you’ll become buddies with that aforementioned already famous artist. At least not when some artists like Jeff Koons, often cited for managing dozens of studio assistants at any one time. He can’t give them all a boost in the art world.
4. Art handler
Artists who made this job famous: Shane Caffrey, Paul Outlaw, and Dave Choi
Pro: Sometimes your gallery will give you a show. Plus, as a freelancer, you’ll make connections with countless dealers, artists, and collectors.
Con: Workplace injuries and the problems ensuing from less-than amazing healthcare.
5. Corporate types
Artists who made this job famous: Jeff Koons
Pro: You’ll have money.
Con: With the exception of Koons, most stockbrokers would need to take a hefty paycut to resume their job as an artist.
6. Graphic designer

Artists who made this job famous: George Maciunas, Andy Warhol, and Barbara Kruger
Pro: It’s not a total mind-suck, and it can inform your own work. Kruger’s text-based work is a perfect example of this, hinging on a knowledge of aesthetics, publishing, and advertising.
Con: It’s still a day job, and one with overbearing monster clients who will rarely understand your vision.
7. Construction worker
Artist who made this job famous: Damien Hirst
Pro: You learn how to build stuff.
Con: You might die.
8. Welder
Artist who made this job famous: Tom Sachs
Pro: If you’re making large-scale work, this job will help hone your welding skills.
Con: You might die.
9. Gallery assistant
Artists who made this job famous: Lynda Benglis, Wendy White, and Louise Lawler
Pro: In the rarest of instances, you could be like Louise Lawler who ended up being represented by Metro Pictures, where she worked for a stint in the 1980s. But really, as an administrative assistant, you’ll get first-hand knowledge of the artist-dealer relationship.
Con: Dealers are not known for being kind to their assistants.
10. Male model
Artist who made this job famous: Matthew Barney
Pro: Money and attention.
Con: Everyone will think you’re vain and superficial. You probably are.

Art Famous Artists with Day Jobs: Part Two

1. Taxi driver
Artists who made this job famous: Phillip Glass, Judith Braun
Pro: You’ll get to meet a wide array of people in the city you’d never meet at art openings.
Cons: 12 hour shifts, puking drunkards, and standstill traffic. Working at nighttime will put a damper on your social life, too; you’ll be driving people from art openings and bars while wishing you weren’t in the driver’s seat.
2. Small business owner
Artist who made this job famous: Richard Serra
Pro: Open your arms wide enough, and you can be the patron saint of your unemployed artist friends, just like Richard Serra who started Low-Rate Movers and hired on Chuck Close, Philip Glass, and Spalding Gray. What a guy!
Con: It can take over your entire life. It’s common to hear of people who stopped making art because they started up their own business (usually art handlers who started their own art handling companies).
3. Restaurant staff
Artists who made this job famous: Mickalene Thomas (waitress), Julian Schnabel (dishwasher and short-order cook), and Keith Haring (busboy)
Pro: With a flexible schedule, you’ll likely have free time to make art, and with cash tips, you’ll rarely need to make stops at an ATM.
Cons: Taking shit from impatient customers and spending hours on your feet. The variable pay isn’t much to write home about, either: relying almost exclusively on tips, some nights you’ll be raking in wads of cash and on others, you’ll barely be able to take a cab home.
4. Hairdresser
Artist who made this job famous: Mark Bradford
Pro: Free haircuts! Also, you get paid as soon as you do the job, and transforming someone’s unkempt, hirsute mess into an updo is hugely satisfying.
Con: Screwing up on someone’s ‘do, even just by an inch, will send your client screaming. In most cases, when you put down the wrong color on a painting, you can cover it up.
5. Furniture Maker
Artist who made this job famous: Richard Artschwager
Pro: For an artist like Artschwager who became famous for his Minimalist cube-furniture-sculptures, this seems like the perfect choice: a day job that strengthens your artistic prowess.
Con: “High rates of illness and injury”. Ugh.
6. Used bookstore clerk
Artists who made this job famous: Jasper Johns and Patti Smith
Pro: Brooklyn-born litterateur Jonathan Lethem once described his many years in a bookstore clerkship as the chance for “constantly discovering all these forgotten authors that I ended up being powerfully influenced by.” There’s something to be said about being surrounded by the greatest minds of former generations, but...
Con: ...for the most part, it’s a low-paying retail job. You’ll still need to be sociable, affable, even, when customers request Fifty Shades of Blah.
7. Living off your wealthy parents or significant other
Artists who made this job famous: Francis Bacon, Lawren Harris, and Alice Neel
Pro: If you’re like Francis Bacon, and you can’t hold down a job on your own, it helps to have parents who will love and support you forever with a trust fund.
Con: There’s often a time-limit: not everyone’s mommy and daddy will support them forever. In Girls’ pilot episode, Lena Dunham’s parents cut her off just one year after graduation, leaving her to fend for herself in the wilds of Greenpoint. Until the ‘rents cut you off, we see no problems with this lifestyle.
8. Programmer/Web developer
Artists who made this job famous: David Rokeby (but this was actually his work), Vuk Cosic, Ryder Ripps, and Patrick May
Pro: Often, you’re doing practically the same thing you’d be doing in your art but for money. And it pays well! Good job.
Con: Some jobs can be incredibly tedious.

9. Hotel owner
Artists who made this job famous: Alighiero Boetti
Pro: Yes, you, too, can have a jet-setting lifestyle in affordable fashion by opening up a hotel in an off-the radar destination. Italian artist Alighiero Boetti opened up the One Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan back in the early 1970s.
Con: Eventually, the Soviets might come in and, like Boetti, you’ll have to get the hell out of dodge.
10. Professor
Artists who made this job famous: Just look at Yale's faculty page.
Pros: Health care, benefits, tenure, studio time, writing, reading, looking important in front of others, talking about whatever you want because you're in charge, traveling to conferences, et cetera.
Con: Teenagers suck.