I’ve always heard the term “struggling artist” and assumed it meant the obvious thing: an artist struggling financially while trying to create. The painter choosing between supplies and groceries. The musician playing for drink tickets. The writer typing into the void while rent waits patiently in the corner, sharpening its little knife. And sure, that struggle is real. But as I continue to paint and create, I’m realizing that the struggle I feel most isn’t the struggle to make the work. It’s the struggle to share the work in its fullness.
Anyone can apply to a local art show and maybe get accepted to hang one piece. Maybe two. And there’s value in that. It gets the work out of the house. It places the object in public. It says, “Here, this exists.” But one painting on a wall is not always enough. Sometimes the work is not a single object. Sometimes the work is a world. A rhythm. A symbolic ecosystem. A strange little weather pattern that needs room to form. To truly show a vision, I don’t need a slot. I need a space.
And that’s where the real struggle begins. From what I can tell, there are only a few ways into that kind of opportunity. You can rent a space, which costs money I do not currently have as a stay-at-home dad. You can become part of a specific local art community, which often means learning the hidden social architecture of each gallery. Or you can slowly and strategically ingratiate yourself into a scene until the idea of showing your work feels like it arose organically from someone else.
And honestly? I could probably do that. I could pick a gallery, start showing up regularly, buy a few small pieces, get to know the curators, say the right things at the right times, and slowly plant the seed until one day someone says, “You know, we should give you a show.” I could have that accomplished in two months. But I have absolutely zero desire to social engineer my life right now.
That’s not judgment. It’s just exhaustion. I’ve done enough versions of performance. Enough strategic personality. Enough carefully calibrated Z. At this point, I want the work to be the thing that speaks. Not my ability to hover near the right people while pretending I’m not hovering. So that leaves applications. Art fairs. Open calls. Local shows. I’ll continue doing those. I know that’s part of the process. But so far, my luck there has been less than stellar.
And still, the need remains. Not the need for prestige. Not the need for some grand institutional blessing. Just the need for a cohesive space. A room, a wall, a sequence, a physical environment where the work can be encountered as a whole rather than as a single object pulled out of context. Because that context matters.
A painting changes when it is surrounded by its siblings. Symbols begin speaking to one another. Colors echo. Repetitions become patterns. Patterns become language. What looked strange in isolation may become intelligible inside the larger field. The vision needs proximity. It needs rhythm. It needs enough space for the viewer to enter the world rather than simply glance at one artifact from it.
That is the part I keep circling. How does an artist without money, status, or institutional access create enough space for the work to reveal itself? Must I open my garage for an Outsider Bardo Art Show and call the absurdity holy? Maybe. There’s something funny and maybe even fitting about that. But the specific location matters less than the deeper need. The work wants to be seen together. It wants to breathe in relation. It wants to become an environment, even if only temporarily.
The “struggling artist” is often imagined as someone suffering nobly in private until society discovers them. But maybe the more accurate struggle is this: the artist keeps creating worlds, and then has to figure out where the hell to put them. Not because the work lacks value, but because access is curated. Because space is expensive. Because communities have invisible doors. Because visibility often requires either money, proximity, or performance.
And maybe I’m simply tired of performing my way into permission. So maybe the next move is not to wait for someone to offer me a room. Maybe the move is to make one. Not necessarily a perfect one. Not necessarily a prestigious one. Not necessarily one with white walls, track lighting, and a paragraph of artspeak by the entrance. Just a space.
A temporary bardo between private creation and public offering. A place where the work can exist together, not as isolated pieces competing for attention, but as a full vision. A weird, sincere, chaotic, living thing. The struggle, then, is not proof that I’m an artist. The struggle is the material I’m forced to build around. And maybe that’s always been the real work anyway.