Art and Teaching

Here’s a piece of advice (and it’s free!) for want-to-be artists (plastic, literary, music, theater, all): Don’t go into teaching. If possible, don’t go to school. You might be able to get by going to school, depending on the school, but if you do, you run the risk of being lured into teaching. And teaching will kill you as an artist. I speak from experience, personal and observational. You go to school. You express an interest in an art. You’re encouraged and praised, based on your modest efforts (“Oh, how witty . . .” or provocative, or challenging, or beguiling, or what-the-shit); your teachers have little reason to squelch your creative urges and every reason to push you further into the academic gyre – graduate school and then teaching. But you can’t make a living from your art, can you? What about teaching? After all, you have the experience from your teaching as a graduate student. So . . . And then you become a teacher. And you can’t be a teacher and an artist at the same time. I’ve seen it a few times. But for every one time I’ve seen a teacher who has become a successful artist, I’ve seen a hundred want-to-be-artist teachers who are not artists. Teaching diverts. Particularly good teaching. If you aspire to art, focus on art. And if you need to make a living, avoid teaching. Wait tables. Or collect trash. (I’m not being flip.)