Shoplifting, Sex Shows, and Sheepdog Breeding: Great Artists and the Side Jobs They Did to Get by | culture

forBefore he pioneered a new kind of semi-autobiographical writing, the great French novelist and playwright Jean Genet pioneered something really quite different: a special bag for stealing valuable books that he would later resell — after reading them first, of course. He later recalled: “I mastered the making of a trick-bag, and became so adept at these thefts that I was able to push literature to the point of pulling it under the eyes of the bookseller.”

As long as young people dreamed of working in the arts – as novelists, painters, poets, musicians, and other types – they had to measure their dreams in light of their economic circumstances. They often found a wide gap between what they hoped to do and what they had the means to pay for it.

To fill this gap, aspiring artists worked in cafés and construction sites, trained to become teachers, lawyers, and doctors, borrowed money from friends and family, sought out generous patrons and wealthy romantic partners, and earned as little money as possible. They have amassed an income from a truly astonishing array of ad hoc schemes, from nude modeling and breeding bob-tailed Old English sheepdogs, to, in Genet’s case, a rare form of shoplifting.

Many of these activities could be called “side hustles,” although the phrase has acquired bad connotations recently. In our increasingly precarious economic times, when no career path seems completely safe, and many jobs don’t exactly pay the bills, it’s become practically necessary for even the least entrepreneurial among us to consider turning a hobby into a side hustle for some extra cash or perhaps a permanent new source of income.

How frustrating! Hobbies are to be enjoyed, not monetized. I hate the idea that every loaf of homemade sourdough or hand-thrown mug of coffee must inevitably raise questions about its potential profitability.

For artists, side hustles have a more mystical lineage. In general, they know what they want to do, whether it is writing sonnets, painting still lifes, or composing an opera. What they don’t know, often, is how to pay for all the time, trial, error, and experimentation that this work inevitably entails. As a result, their activities have a more wishful, lively, and often slightly restless quality. They’re not just trying to pay the rent or send the kids to summer camp. They are trying to make art – and the world simply has to do some facilitating.

Having spent several years writing a book about artists’ funding methods through the ages, I’m full of examples. Genette is one of my favorites. He was good, sure – but not good enough to avoid arrest every now and then, which resulted in him spending several short stints in prison, although that was a blessing in a way. Prison gave him more time to read, and during his sentence in 1939 he discovered his vocation as a writer.

Genet was not the only young artist to use illegal means to finance his early years. A young Jean-Luc Godard financed his younger days as a film critic and aspiring filmmaker by stealing and reselling valuable first edition books from his grandfather’s apartment in Paris, as well as stealing money from at least two of his employers. One of these thefts landed him in a Swiss prison and then in a psychiatric institution. While living in New York in the 1970s, Belgian director Chantal Akerman earned half the cash she earned from her job selling tickets at an adult movie theater in Times Square. She also stole boxes of 35mm film from a photo lab, which she later used in the production of her first feature film.

At around the same time, young Kathy Acker was working nearby at a nightclub called Fun City, where she was performing live (simulated) sex shows with her boyfriend. These and similar jobs paid better and took less time than “straightforward” jobs. At Fun City, Acker only had to work one day a week and write the other six. The job also gave her a new perspective on community and relationships that proved fruitful for her writing. “You see people from the bottom up,” she said.

Not all of the artist’s side gigs were so transgressive. In the 1950s, pioneering American composer John Cage turned a perfectly healthy hobby into an unlikely source of money. His hobby was mushrooms (non-psychedelic varieties), which Cage first began researching in the 1930s to supplement his meager diet as a penniless young musician. Over time, he became a specialist in mycology, eventually building up an extensive book collection on the subject and joining several societies.

In the late 1950s, while touring Europe for six months, Cage managed to turn this hobby into profit. He was accepted as a contestant on Lascia o Raddoppia (roughly: Double or Nothing), a hugely popular Italian television game show which invited contestants to answer questions on a topic of their choice.

Cage appeared in five episodes in 1959, where he was questioned – of course – about his beloved mushroom. In the end, the composer received 5 million lire, the equivalent of about £70,000 today. He used his winnings to buy a Steinway piano for himself and a Volkswagen Campervan for his partner Merce Cunningham’s dance company to use on tours. Cage said it was “the first big sum of money I ever made.”

Unfortunately, not all side hustles are so blessed — and many artists find that even indulgent side gigs can be a drag on their creative energy. A few years before Cage’s victory, the young Abstract Expressionist painter Grace Hartigan was living in an unheated New York apartment, working temporary jobs and recording her deep frustration in her diary. “It’s been a whole month and I haven’t picked up a single brush,” she wrote on March 5, 1952. “I worked for three weeks at a clerical job that was a miracle of stupidity, and was down all the time, really hopeless. And now we’re as broke as ever.”

Some side hustles have also turned into unplanned full-time commitments, much to the artists’ horror. In 1913, Canadian post-impressionist painter Emily Carr returned to her native Victoria, British Columbia, planning to build herself a new home with a spacious, light-filled painting studio, and rooms she could rent to finance her art.

Unfortunately, her plan was put into action with the outbreak of World War I and severely damaged the Canadian economy. In the following years, she had to devote all her energy to running a full-fledged boarding house that still did not cover her expenses. To supplement this rental income, she made pottery to sell to tourists and bred Old English sheepdogs in her backyard, selling the puppies to men returning from the war. Needless to say, her painting career suffered greatly.

So what can today’s underfunded artist learn from the side hustles of earlier eras? For one thing: if you’re not making money from… Your art, you are in very good company. Many brilliant and pioneering artists barely earned any income from their work, especially when they were starting out, yet they maintained the belief that their artistic instincts were worth pursuing.

And the way they paid for life along the way may have had a subtle influence on their creativity — or at least exercised some of the same muscles they later flexed in their studios, workshops, or offices. It is not difficult to imagine a connection between Genet’s love of shoplifting and his transgressive imagination. Cage didn’t make much money from his music, but he eventually made a good living by traveling to give lectures on his ideas, drawing on the same charisma that made him a natural fit for Italian television.

However, these stories remind us that being an artist is not just about writing a novel, painting, opera, or anything else. It’s also about putting yourself in the position where you can make something happen. This means gaining the life experience and emotional maturity to create original work. It also means developing a deep knowledge of the history of your field and what your contemporaries are doing. Most importantly, it means finding whatever amount of financial stability you need to do what you feel called to do.

In other words, being an artist isn’t primarily about talent, inspiration, or having the best idea — and it’s certainly not about achieving the imaginary ideal conditions for the lifestyle of the artist of your dreams. It’s about bringing something to life using the time and resources you have, no matter how few and limited they may be. This might be a lesson we can all embrace, whether we’re trying to achieve a masterpiece or completely unprofitable sourdough bread.