If You Stay in Survival Mode, Your Art is F*cked

Unf**k Yourself and do it now

Being an artist has to be more than a hobby. You have to quite literally live it. Survival mode WILL eat your gift alive if you let it. You cannot do your best work when survival is your only focus. When all I could think about was paying bills, deadlines, and scraping by, my art suffered. My energy was gone, my ideas felt flat, and I realized I was cheating myself and my craft. I was making art, but not the art I needed to make. It will not work. Not even a little.

I say this from experience. From a place of least privilege, from my life, from my journey as an artist. Being stuck in survival mode took so much from me. More than I realized until I started trusting the process instead of just trying to survive.

My Earliest “ Hustle “

(Not too much on the quality I had to go far to find these lmao)

Imma take y’all way back , so I used to do tattoos with my oil sharpie markers at the lunch table in middle school for 25 cents. If you know, you know. I had that whole back table lined up for a tattoo. On some real hustla sh*t lmao but I used that money to buy snacks. That sh*t was pure fun. No stress, just creating and snacking.

Monetizing Too Fast

As I got older, I dabbled in murals, grad hats, custom paintings. I tried to monetize my work so quickly, especially because it was in demand. I had talents in multiple areas and did A LOT. I wanted to beat the whole “starving artist” trope. I was trying to prove my parent wrong. I was thinking of everything I could do to make a living off the stuff I was creating. I wanted to make enough to SURVIVE.

In the long run, I overcompensated every time. I allowed people to pay less than my art was actually worth, I did a lot of unpaid work, had issues when it came to payments of completed works. This is where I went WRONG. I didn’t even have a style. I never experimented with anything. This was just driven by the need to monetize. And truthfully, that money wasn’t enough because I always charged less.

Do You Wanna Be Basic? Or Stand Out?

When you build your skill as an artist and find a style, you can 100% monetize way more, especially when you create for you.

If you create for the crowd, you’re just going to be another artist catering to the masses.

And to me? That’s my biggest fear. Losing myself catering to the masses just because I can create.

Matthew 16:26 — “What good is it to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul”

This verse applies in many aspects, and this is very much one of them. When you create from a place of survival, in my experience, and I can only speak for me, my work feels forced. When you rush to monetize you’re breaking yourself down slowly but surely. Having so many demands takes the drive out of the passion.

You have to learn to balance doing what you love while LIVING.

Everything I created prior to 2021, I did in survival mode. This was before I started making personal pieces, which I spoke about in another article , that felt like an open journal. I’ve gone through many stages as an artist to get to where I am today. If I could skip certain parts, would I? I want to say no so bad, but I’m gonna say I’d skip the whole survival part.

Lessons Learned

Truthfully, I took so much SH*T when I was in this mode all because I was getting “paid.” And was it worth it? F** no. You put so much out for people and forget you’re a person too. You’re not a robot. You’re an ARTIST. Please, for the love of life, remember who you are and the talent you hold , talk your sh*t.

F*** playing it safe. F*** catering to the masses. Take your voice back.

The artist I am now creates from a place of deep connection and intention. You have to build a healthy relationship with your gift if you’re gonna monetize. You can still have a healthy relationship with your craft. Do not abuse it because it’s always gifting you.

Create from a place of freedom and intention.

Trust me, I know you want to survive from your work and make a name for yourself, but what’s the point of that if you can’t really enjoy the practice and the monetary gains from it? A drained artist is as good as a dead artist. I know that’s harsh, but what really is there to it anymore? Ask yourself.

Opportunities Will Come and Go

Take the risks. Be open. When you get to the peak of the relationship with your craft, you’ll see what I mean. Opportunities will come and go. For the sake of myself, I’ve turned down plenty, and it’s okay. There will be opportunities that will either make or break you , when it comes to breaking you let that be ONLY an attempt.

Some artists stop and never pick up their tools again because of the stress of demand.

Create, put out, take a break, repeat.

Your craft isn’t the only relationship to build. The most important relationship is with your body. Have you ever been drained after working on a project? All limbs tired, back aching, cloudy mind, droopy eyes, oily skin? then you finally lay in your bed and all the tension runs through your body like electricity. That’s called a burnout, and it can last a long-ass time. Take it from me, I had one. I didn’t make any paintings for 2 years. I was down fu***ng bad.

Respect Your Limits

The thing about working in survival mode is you think you’re working a lot and efficiently, but you’re just pushing yourself past capacity EVERY TIME. You’re not always producing quality results. Learn to prioritize your abilities and respect your body and its limits, don’t push it, because lemme tell you something whether its now or later , the body is keeping score (great book by the way definitely recommend).

The way my art looks right now is because I’m living and creating. I’m not creating to survive. If you know me personally, you’d know I’ve spent a lot of my life in survival mode. After you come out of it, you realize how much time you lost, all the super long breaks you had to take because you pushed yourself too far and your body or mind couldn’t function properly.

You have to know that whether this sh*t sells or not, I did it for me anyway. You have to do it for yourself before you do it for anyone else. Because survival mode kills everything creatively. You’re wondering how it will appeal to an audience. How will they like it? How much will the crowd think this is worth?

You are in a prison, FREE U!

How does it appeal to YOU? How much do YOU like it? How much do YOU think it’s worth? Stand on your sh*t. Stand real firm.

The hardest lesson I had to learn in life is stop trying to please people because people cannot be pleased, litterally make them f**k off? Keep going because this is your race. You’re running it. And guess what? You have no opponents. It was never about anyone else. Always about you.

Your mindset has to change. Your relationship with your gift, your body, your mind, and ngl, your gut too, has to change. Gut health ain’t no joke. Freedom looks like everything I’ve mentioned here and in previous articles we’ve talked about and will continue.

Create for you, live for you, and let the world catch up.

Stay in survival mode, and you face the risk of losing the artist. If you lose yourself, who creates the art?