The short version: WOAH CHECK THIS OOOOUT!

The long version: I talk about money some times.  Yeah, yeah.  Do art for the love of art.  Well, it’s kind of hard to work to fulfill your dream all of the time when you’re spending half of your life working to fulfill some one else’s, and half of the rest of your time recovering from doing so, with the other regular responsibilities of living to boot.  In other words, working for some one else to make money to live really puts a damper on artistic endeavors.  But most artists have to live this way, so why do I deserve to live off of my art?  Well, I guess that I don’t, but it sure would be nice.  And, hey, I don’t think that I’m a special case.  All complicated art is work, and I think that all artists should be able to live off of their work.  If you agree, you should check out Patreon.  It’s a web site that is similar to Kickstarter, but it’s not about kick-starting any specific project.  It’s a place where people can set up recurring donations with the idea that artists can get regular income and be regularly inspired to produce new material.  Patrons can donate as little as one dollar per month, and in return get exclusive access to what ever the artist lists as recurring rewards.  It encourages a more personal exchange between artists and fans also, which I find lacking in today’s society.  So check it out, and, please, if you delight in the idea of Shyft being able to write books and music for a living, contribute what you can here.  It’s not just for me and the fans of my work, but for Shyfted Minds as a record label and the other artists on here, for future artists of SHM, as promotion and producing all of the releases all takes time and money that I rarely can afford.

Even longer: school’s over and I have a degree, but it’s a BS degree that’s kinda intended for use with a doctorate that I don’t have.  What I do have, that came as an added bonus to my degree, is a load of debt to the government.  Hey.  I couldn’t get a job at the time, so loan-funded school/living expenses was my only option.  In order to make minimum payments and still be financially secure, I need to get a pretty well-paying job… or work more than one full time job.  This comes down to actually landing some thing with my degree, being over-stressed by the service industry, and/or never having time for art and hating my self.  Yes, I’d probably feel fulfilling for me to work as a research associate or a low-end counselor, and I live in an area with a decent job market, but it’s not what I want my energy put toward.  Getting a stable income of, say, five hundred dollars per month for my art would make a huge difference.  I could work some mindless full time job where I’m able to exercise my body and listen to music, and not be very mentally fatigued by the time that I get home every day- I could still regularly work on stories and music.

Yes.  The life of an artist is a struggle.  Does it ought to be a struggle?  I understand that there are plenty of people out there who are dysfunctional without good art in their lives, and they are also quite poor, and I would rather they get the art that helps them for free.  I also understand that there is already plenty of art available from people far richer than I and more motivated, more willing to sacrifice than I am, but that doesn’t mean that artists like my self should die off.  Good art is some thing that the world can’t get enough of, just as it can’t get enough well-educated pioneers of thought (there’s a similarly shameful problem with the education system in this country).  I fancy the idea of making a living off of my art so that I can love my job, so that I can fully embrace my true identity, and so that, some day, I might be able to vigorously patronize many other great yet struggling artists out there.