Marketplace Features

Web Resource for "Artists' Day Jobs" segment

Fact: almost all artists have day jobs.

Painters who have gone to art school, instrumentalists who have been through conservatories, writers who have graduated from writing programs, of these, only a very few (exceptionally lucky, talented or both?) manage to actually make a living doing what they love and have been trained to do. The rest work in offices, in restaurants, on road crews -- in short, they have jobs just like any of us. The difference is that at the end of the working day, artists go home or to the studio or even out on tour, and struggle to find the time and energy to do their real job: their artwork.

The four artists that I spoke to for this story are at different points in their professional trajectories.

Jim Morphesis has had many years of success as a painter, but he also now works full time as a professor of art at Pasadena City College, in Los Angeles.

Kim Fox has a successful career as a singer-songwriter, but also supplements her music income with her work as a photographer.

Doug Bistrow is a recent graduate in upright bass from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y. He now lives in Chicago and does clerical work during the day at the hospital at Chicago University. He is also auditioning for orchestras in the area. And at night, he performs casual jazz gigs and plays in a rock band called The Shift.

Brienne Erington graduated a year ago as a fine artist from the Otis School of Art and Design. Brienne works as an assistant to established Los Angeles painter John Baldessari. She also runs her own gallery -- 4F Gallery, located in LA's Chinatown -- with two partners. And of course, she continues to do her own artwork.

4F Gallery - 977 Chung King Rd. (in Chinatown), Los Angeles 90012 (213) 753-6151 E-mail, ilove4f@hotmail.com