Selling Out

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Woops, tumblr got my brain cogs going again!

Selling Out
Verb: Going against what you believe in or against what you identify as in order to make a quick buck.

Growing successful and enjoying great popularity and/or financial success doing what you love does not count as "selling out". It annoys me when people are so quick to equate success as "selling out". Especially in the arts.

I posted this on tumblr and got a few comments from art students in 'commercial art' majors telling how they've been accused of 'selling out' by other students in fine art majors.
And once again, as an illustrator enrolled in a fine arts (painting) program, my empathy burns with a passion for artists in such a position.

Personally,  I've had to lay the verbal beat down a couple of times in regards to the topic of 'selling out'.

The most common thing I heard was that "all illustration looks the same, probably just because that's what the public likes."  To which the response was "All abstract painting looks the same, probably just because that's what the curators like." Minding how ignorant it is to say and actually mean such a statement like that towards any genre of art, it's all catering to a market, to a particular group of people. But it's the market/group of people that we most relate to, that we want to cater to.

If an artist wants to cater to an 'art educated' public, that's their choice—and it's a good choice. I personally like to cater to a moderately critical public viewership, and so I do work for that kind of audience. Other people want to cater to fandoms, and the people who partake in those fandoms are their audience. It's all valid, it's all good. And if you love it, if you're passionate about it, if it's what you dig, how is that selling out??

It would be "selling out" if people like myself, with a love for publicly accessible illustrative work, gave in to the pressure of an educational institution, and to the pressure of our peers, to make work that caters to something we give little to no shits about. Such as what is widely accepted/defined as 'fine art painting' (what does that even mean, anyways??).
If they don't like what we do, that is a-ok! But no one should accuse anyone of "selling out" because they're not doing the kind of work other people think they should do. That's just ignorant.

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background image by *ashwara