How To Succeed As An Artist If Your Country Treats Artists As Pieces Of S****

If you find the title familiar, you`re sure from one of those countries that treat artist as pieces of s****. (Sorry for bad language.)

I`m from one of those and at this moment I already have this program looping in my head:

I wrote "to succeed" in the title! People will think I`m ambitious, arrogant, selfish bitch! But I`m not! But I can`t explain that to them!* (*looping...)

Because in countries like those being ambitious is equal to being arrogant and selfish, especially if you`re an artist, and especially woman artist.

And I`m so sick of it!

Let me explain. In my country, there`s no place for 90% artist and people are poor. The government doesn`t like art and artist because they`re intelligent, and they need stupid people to rule over them. In the past 10 years, art and culture field is kept going down and down. And people lost respect for art and artists.

(That domestic painter?
Yes, he has 12 awards, but so what! Who`s that guy, who does he pretend to be!

That domestic writer?
Yes, she`s published 15 books, but, you know... she`s just a loser!)

***

And the artists keep trying and trying... Getting awards, publishing books, having exhibitions... And then, after many of that, you realize:

THERE`S NO WAY OUT.

You can put all your effort, heart and years and years into it, but it`s not in your hands. Because it`s not because of you. It`s because of the public system which is corrupted. And you can`t fight out the system. 

The only artists who succeed are on positions because they`re rich or politically active.

Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash

And then the un-artistic rest of people start to attack you or - paradoxically - start to comfort you this way:

"If you're the REAL artist you don`t need the audience or money for your art! The ACT OF CREATING is the one which is only important!"

Is it true?

Honestly, I never felt it is true. Because, what is the point of creating art in that case? The artist gives his talent, effort, time... for - nothing. He makes a beautiful statue every day for one year and then... he puts it in the basement. For...

IT`S JUST NOT NATURAL!

But... I`ve been there... DOWN... After 10 years of creating, publishing, awards and similar... I lost hope. There`s no point of being the artist here, and even worse some people think you`re some kind of freak. But I told to myself:

"Ok, Natasha. There`s no way out. You must accept their idea to save your self psychologically: THE ACT OF CREATING is the only what`s of importance. It`s not important that society treats artist as pieces of sh****. Just create, CREATE!!!"

I really tried mantra-ing that.

The same year I got several medical diagnoses, including PCOS, endometriosis and even brain aneurysm. My hair has begun to fall out.

I realized it`s so against the core of my inner being that at the end I`m gonna get cancer or something!

The long story short... (I`ll write a lot more posts about this, this is just the beginning) I realized I MUST work in English.

BUT... I DON`T KNOW ENGLISH! (*I don`t know it so good)

AND I DON`T NEED IT TO GO TO STORE TO BUY BREAD, I NEED TO WRITE LITERATURE IN IT! 

AND IT`S IMPOSSIBLE!!!

But, it`s not! I learned actively by myself for six months, and the miracle happened. The first step. My poems are published on Academy Of The Heart And Mind a few days ago!!!

Yeyyyy!! I`m so happy. I suppose that those people on AcademyOfHeartAndMind don`t know that`s such a huge step for me! THANK YOU ONCE MORE! :D :D :D

I made internationally awarded poetry book in my maternal language, I had my TV show as the author on 30 TV stations (nobody cares here for that stations because they`re domestic and all people watch satellite, and domestic stations are sadly closing one by one...), I made pioneering awarded art project... But I had to say goodbye to that part of my life.

Me at the promotion of my awarded book in the neighboring country,
with the other domestic artist - the people most in the same sh*** as me

So, if you from one of the NON-ENGLISH-LANGUAGE countries and your country treats artists like (...), 

START IN ENGLISH!!!

Yes, you need to learn, but it`s better to spend time on that, than on trying to win a political system in your country which is impossible and you gonna lose... EVERYTHING. 

You gonna lose your lifetime. So, you know what you need to do. :)

p.s. Just to tell that today luckily I don`t have none of three diseases anymore. More about it in another post. :)

I`ll be happy to answer your comments and to share my experiences! :)

Natasha