What if economists lived like artists

What if economists lived like artists?

Recently I found myself trying to explain to a room of intelligent, experienced people what it actually means to build a life as an artist.

It made me realise just how difficult that is to explain if you’ve never lived it.

So let me try a different way. Imagine you were an economist.

You loved numbers, models and theories. You were fascinated by understanding how businesses, communities and economies worked. Looking for patterns in data and developing new ways of thinking about the world wasn’t just your job. It was your passion.

You completed an undergraduate degree, perhaps a master’s degree, and spent years refining your thinking. You loved researching, testing ideas and producing thoughtful economic reports.

But there was a problem.

There weren’t many jobs that paid you to simply think, research and develop new ideas. So, like many economists, you pieced together a living. You taught, consulted, worked other jobs and fitted your economic research around everything else.

You worked evenings. Weekends. Sometimes you gave up holidays and time with your family.

Not because anyone expected you to. Because you believed the work mattered.

Every so often, an organisation invited you to exhibit one of your economic reports.

Sometimes you even had to pay an entry fee to be considered.

If your report was selected, you paid to have it beautifully printed and professionally presented. You paid to transport it. After a short exhibition, it usually came home again.

Occasionally, someone truly understood what they were looking at.

They recognised not just the finished report, but the years of study behind it. The hundreds of hours of research. The refinement of ideas. The originality of your thinking.

Very occasionally, someone purchased it.

One sale. One person who genuinely understood.

That single moment could sustain you for months. It reminded you that what you were doing had value.

Most of the time, however, your reports returned to a shelf or a filing cabinet, waiting for another opportunity.

You kept producing them anyway.

Not because it made financial sense but because it gave your life meaning.

Sometimes organisations approached you asking if you would donate one of your reports for a fundraising auction. They explained it would be wonderful exposure. Your work might sell for a fraction of the time and expertise that had gone into producing it.

You smiled. You donated it anyway.

Because you believed in the cause.

Eventually, if you were fortunate, you might secure a position teaching economics or working within an organisation that genuinely valued your expertise. You could pass on your knowledge and inspire others to see the world through an economic lens.

But even then, the work was rarely secure. Funding changed. Courses depended on enrolments. Salaries often reflected budgets rather than expertise.

Still, you stayed. Because this wasn’t simply employment. It was a vocation.

Now replace “economist” with painter.

Or jeweller.

Or ceramicist.

Or sculptor.

Or writer.

Or dancer.

This is the reality for many artists.

Artists don’t simply produce objects.

They spend decades developing ways of seeing. They research. They experiment. They fail repeatedly. They refine techniques that can take years to master. They pursue ideas with no guarantee of success because they believe those ideas matter.

The finished artwork is only the visible tip of an enormous iceberg of invisible labour.

Most artists will never become wealthy.

Many support their practice through teaching, hospitality, retail, administration or countless other jobs that allow them to keep making.

Not because they’re unsuccesful.

Because the value of creative work is difficult to measure using the tools we usually use to measure value.

Yet artists continue.

They enrich our communities. They preserve knowledge and skills. They ask difficult questions. They imagine different futures. They create moments of beauty, reflection and connection that can’t easily be expressed on a balance sheet.

The next time you visit a gallery, meet an artist or hold a handmade object in your hands, remember that you’re not simply looking at the finished work.

You’re looking at decades of learning.

Thousands of hours of invisible labour.

Countless failures and extraordinary persistence.

And a remarkable decision to keep making despite every reason not to.

Would you choose that life?

Artists do.

I wrote this after spending many months involved in governance discussions about the future of a community arts organisation. It reminded me how easy it is to evaluate artists through organisational, financial or managerial lenses, and how much harder it is to understand the lived reality of artistic practice. This isn’t an argument against good governance. It’s an invitation to broaden our understanding of the people our arts organisations exist to support.