A Short Note On Art and Day Jobs: Your mileage, of course, may vary.

[dancinglights]

On a personal level, I really don't get the unspoken "don't talk about your day job" rule in arts communities, especially in public spaces online. My day job is awesome. Pretending not to have it wouldn't lend anything else I do more legitimacy. At the end of the day, I'd rather people know I don't have slow artistic output because I'm lazy or

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[miss_adventure]

At the end of the day, I'd rather people know I don't have slow artistic output because I'm lazy or uninspired, it's because I have this incredibly time-intensive side project in internationally collaborative astronomy research.

Replace law with internationally collaborative astronomy research, and yes, this. I think one of the stereotypes about "day jobs" is that they are low-skilled and emotionally meaningless and roughly interchangeable. And I get why for some artists that can be a plus--something that is steady enough to pay the bills, but that they don't have to take home with them or get emotionally invested in so they have that mental energy for their creative work. That said, I get unhappy quickly if I feel my paid work is meaningless or mindless, and frankly, public interest law is a creative endeavour of its own (as is what you do)--it's all about building a narrative. I mean, yeah, the hours I spent doing legal research today wasn't fascinating, but putting together my theory of the case will be.

Even if my job wasn't so awesome, I'd rather be inspiring for the work I juggle and risk judgment from strangers for not being successful enough in the arts to pay all of my bills with that alone; far fewer artists do than the general public thinks and it feeds a discouraging artificial distinction.

This. I have known a lot of so-called "professional artists" who are either the products of wealthy families who have trust funds or some such that they live off, or else are on the dole, so I tend to look at these things with a rather jaundiced eye. Of course, I know people who had the lucky breaks to live off their art, but they're rare indeed. I know legit rock stars who live hand-to-mouth in tiny apartments; they support themselves, but they're not exactly living in mansions and riding around in limos.

eta: Musicians seem to have less shame about having day (or night) jobs than a lot of other creative types. I'm not sure why that is, or if that's my distorted perception as a musician.