A friend recently sent me a link about struggling artists in New York working in a supermarket while they waited for their “lucky break” (see http://nymag.com/guides/money/2007/39958/).

The question I have is this: can you still define yourself as an artist when you work nearly full-time in a supermarket? Are you not just a shelf stacker? Who are you trying to kid, yourself or others, or both? Is it not better to be honest with yourself and admit that the majority of your time is spent not doing something creative and fun but boring and tedious?

This made me think about myself. When people ask me what my profession is I never say “artist”, but tell them what my day job is (although I think my job is a lot more interesting than selling pots of yoghurt and organic carrots). But if you asked some of these New York, creative, shelf stackers they would probably say “I’m an artist/actor/film director/…”. Maybe it’s a cultural difference. When I visited New York, all I could hear from others conversations was how they were really an “actor”, “artist”, “film director”, “musician” and they just did the day job to earn money. Does it make them feel better to think in this way? Can you define yourself by what you do for the minority of your time?

Maybe it depends on how passionate you are about something and that is what defines you. Or maybe it is to do with how seriously you take your interests. I prefer to take my day job more seriously than that and I see it as being a bit pretentious to deny what you do for the majority of your day. Or perhaps I should try it. The next time someone asks me I’ll say, “I’m really an artist”.