MAKING ART AND MAKING A LIVING

An astute assemblage of biographical sketches highlights how practical circumstances can complicate artistic ambition.

Artists, as Daily Rituals author Currey posits, live to pursue their art but still require a roof overhead, food to eat, and supplies for their craft. The tension between making the money necessary for survival and making room for art forms the backbone of this engrossing book. Four sections loosely organize artists into those dependent on “Family Money,” “Jobs,” “Patronage,” and “Schemes.” Both Virginia Woolf and Charles Baudelaire received inheritances, but Wolff parceled hers out diligently while Baudelaire spent profligately to the point of destitution. Patronage could be a boon—but the artist might have to shift to suit the patron. Petrarch, for instance, joined the clergy in pursuit of a benefactor. Painters who lived in unheated studios to save money and paint in peace appeal to romantic perceptions of a starving artist. However, the majority of subjects here are white creators from the 19th and 20th centuries, and stories of minority artists like Black sculptor Augusta Savage complicate the book’s premise. A unique talent, she taught and supported other minority artists while her own work went unfunded. Non-white artists, faced with the unlikelihood of recognition and profitability in a biased cultural milieu, beg the question: Is the economic pressure experienced by white creatives working in recognized mediums such a tremendous challenge? Since Currey zeroes in on the stories of compelling individuals, broader economic and cultural realities are gestured at rather than explicated. Nonetheless, as an invitation to create—to push up against limits, to squeeze time from the margins of the day, and to live on sardines and crusts of bread if necessary—Currey’s case studies may well spark the artistically inclined reader to attend more dutifully to their life’s calling.

Thought-provoking, interwoven profiles celebrate the creative drive in context.