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On being a hobbyist

Lately I’ve been feeling very burnt out and unmotivated to make art. At first I didn’t really know why, but now I’m starting to understand.

I’ve probably been focusing too much on being professional and marketing myself in a clean, polished way to not “ruin my future career as an artist”. I wouldn’t say that’s an issue if it wasn’t limiting the way I create and make art. It’s very hard to make the art you actually want to make while trying to be professional for an industry you might never be a part of, marketable as a possible brand you haven’t even started and easy to consume by the people on social media. All of this while being authentic, of course.

So at some point I had to step back and question myself “is this what I actually want to do?”. My art is very important to me, and limiting myself for hypothetical situations where my current art might not be appropriate or a good product is only turning art into a chore or something unenjoyable. So what’s the solution here?

Well, I don’t know. Ultimately, I know I want art to be my job, but maybe I shouldn’t overthink what path I should take when I haven’t even started studying my illustration degree yet. So, for now, I’ve decided I want art to stay as a hobby and my comics as a passion project while I wait for the right moment to decide what I want my art career to be like.

Choosing to do art as a hobby always feels like a failure to me. It makes me feel like I’m giving up or losing opportunities to make it my actual job, but… Somehow, it feels better to do it this way now. In this era of AI, doing something just because it brings me joy and because it’s fun is the biggest act of resistance I can do. I probably think too much about how useful my art can be or how necessary it is or what the actual point of making art is now that AI is around. I’ve thought so much about it that I feel like I’m just creating out of spite. But I don’t like that. I want to create out of love and because it’s fun!

So even if my mind tells me being a hobbyist is being a failure, I will fight back to make myself believe it’s not. I know I want my comics and my illustrations to be my actual job, and I will make it happen. But while I wait for the right moment for that, I will keep making art for myself. I deserve that, and so does everyone else.

Being a hobbyist is okay. Art doesn’t need a purpose for it to be made.