One of the more difficult aspects of trying to make a living off your creativity is the making a living part. How much time and energy do you spend trying to figure out what the market wants, what will sell, and what’s popular now? Do you find yourself following trends and borrowing from other artists/writers/designers versus creating your own vision?

I think it’s obvious when you are making something for which you have no passion. When you are creating your work straight from your original spirit, it shows and that is part of what makes the work so attractive to others. If some of you is not imbued in what you are creating, what is the point?

I used to make these garden Faerie doors—they were solar powered resin cast doors with one-of-a-kind embellishments whose windows would light up in your garden when the sun went down. People loved them! I sold more of those than anything else at the art shows. And at first they were fun but they were more of a gimmick than a passion. After a while I got rather tired of making them and took no pride in the compliments I would get. They were just things I felt I had to make because it guaranteed that every art show would be monetarily worthwhile.

Then suddenly they stopped selling or at least they wouldn’t go for quite as much as they used to. It seemed rather odd to me until the day I looked at the pictures of the first ones I had made and then at the ones I had done most recently. They weren’t the same. The newer ones were comparatively dull, just churned out with no real design to them. It was obvious that I just wasn’t doing them very well any more.

Now I could have simply bucked up and worked on the designs and improved where I had been lagging but the thing is, I really didn’t want to make the faerie doors anymore. My heart wasn’t in it and I think it was obvious to the buyers. So I stopped making them and reevaluated my whole line. I scraped any design that made me cringe or that I knew I wouldn’t wear or display in my own place, anything I didn’t feel excited about selling. And you know, I am not only a happier artist for doing that but my newer work gets far more attention and compliments and goes for higher prices than my older work. And all I had to do was make what I felt was good art. Not what the market might have led me to believe was wanted.

Even if the work you do is under contract for a client and they have specific ways they want you to do things, they hired you based on something in your personality or your portfolio that made them feel you could create the look or feel they want. So put yourself into your work, be true to who you are as an original creator. Not everyone will love what you do, but do what you love and you will draw those who taste parallel yours.