Why should I think long-term about my art career instead of focusing on quick results?

Understand the profound truth about creative careers: artists will create until they physically cannot anymore. This drive never goes away. On webinars, people regularly show up in their 70s, 80s, 90s, even over 100 years old, still asking how to get their art seen and sold. When you retire from most careers, you stop doing that work - but creatives never truly retire from creating. This means you likely have 20, 30, 40, 50, 60+ years ahead of you in this journey. Many artists make decisions with a short time horizon: ‘How quickly can I get results? Will I have a huge business in year one? How much will I sell in six months?’ But you’re not building a six-month project - you’re building something for the rest of your life. This perspective should change every decision you make. Don’t be the 80 or 90-year-old who never learned the technology, never built the online presence, never did the marketing, and is now desperately trying to figure it out. Taking your art career seriously as a business today is a choice that pays dividends for decades. The years slip by whether you act or not - but looking back with regret, wishing you’d started properly 30 years ago, is avoidable.

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Answered by Patrick · Art Business Webinar · 2026-07-22