HOLDING MULTIPLE JOBS IN ORDER TO MAKE A LIVING OR TO MAKE A LIFE?

Multiple job holding is a solution for artists’ financial problems. However, what if? What if financial problems and multiple jobs are distracting visual artists from creating high quality art? What are the implications of this life style? What are the pros and cons of holding multiple jobs and, maybe most importantly, are the artists still satisfied with their artistic work? They are making a living, but to what extent are they also making their lives in the way they want to? How creative are artists in making their lives? Can they still valorise themselves as artists when they hold multiple jobs? Do we need to protect our artists by subsiding them? Would we be sacrificing a flourishing cultural sector when we stop subsidising the arts? With questions and issues such as these in mind, I decided to talk to visual artists, since they are the experience experts in this matter. This Master Thesis focusses on the research question: To what extent are visual artists in the Netherlands still making an artistic life while having multiple jobs? In order to formulate an answer, the conducted research was based on a theoretical framework which consists from three parts. Firstly, the framework discusses theory about how multiple job holding enables artists to make a living, followed by theory about how they could also valorise their artistic lives and own sense of cultural entrepreneurship. Especially Klamer’s value based approach played an important role throughout the conducted research. The data for this research was gathered through semi-structured in-depth interviews with visual artists from the Netherlands and representatives of an art gallery, the Mondriaan Fund and Cultuur+Ondernemen. Since the process of conducting qualitative research can bring about changes in researchers themselves (Palaganas et al., 2017), reflexivity is a significant part of this master thesis’ research findings. By using an explorative and reflexive approach, I was able to investigate my own questions and assumptions throughout the process which has resulted in numerous new insights and precious memories. Although the results show that the impact of multiple job holding on a person’s artistic life differs per individual, it appeared to be possible to discover common threads within the interviews. Therefore, the gathered data is presented according to four main themes: autonomy, subsidy, market and balance. The data analysis was structured according to the three themes of the theoretical framework: making a living, making a life and the artist as a cultural entrepreneur.