Any artists/creatives about?

[ThatOneStupidPheasant]

Worth a shot!

I was a painter for much of my life, pretty much bound up with my identity after a while, did my MA in fine art, ect, worked in the industry for a few decades.

I seemed to fall out of love with it a few years ago, although saw it coming really. I now feel much more myself writing or working in other creative areas.
I would love to hear if anyone else has experienced a change such as this, it still feels odd to me, to have moved past it, but it began to make me feel depressed and claustrophobic, and had a tendency to absorb my time and isolate me. I feel much more open and at ease not painting!
I now have a 'regular' job and actually prefer it.

You hear about artists who changed medium or switched to a different set of tools, but maybe not so common to just up and leave an entire field?

Anyhow, if anyone can relate, I would love to chat! I actually googled this and had no joy.

I’m probably not your target audience OP - I only started (self-taught) painting in 2021 and I love it. But.. I used to write short stories before but felt the way you did about painting!
So the reverse if you like but neither activity was professional and just my “hobby”.
I get a lot of talk about art (I have no shame about failure so happily post on instagram and have chats with people from that (people I’ve never met and local people).
What was your preferred medium and style?

It's a strange thing isn't it? And I wonder why we feel so different. Perhaps for me it was a lifetime's devotion and work, and finally seeing, at the age of 50, that it has a detrimental effect on me, one which quite suited me when young.

Both writing and painting can isolate, true! But for me, the painting pulled me in like a total absorption that blocked out all other aspects of life. With other mediums to create, I find that I am more open and alive, so it was a pretty big revelation for me.

Weekend eve on MN not a great idea for art chat, I suppose:)

I’m going the other way, but I’ve found “the artist’s way” by Julia Cameron very helpful for this type of shift. Perhaps it might be useful to you too?

I think if you’re not compelled to do it then it’s better off to have a more balanced life. I’m 50
and still do my artistic/creative career but it’s a ballache in many ways and requires being selfish and singleminded plus constant grind to keep motivated and building on what I’ve done. I can see how you’d have a revelation and sack it off to enjoy life and a normal job instead, and it doesn’t sound like you regret that and rightly so. Even Ridley Scott has got fed up of films finally so it can happen to anyone. For me, I still love the good times when I’m lost in it and also when I get to work with good people on a worthwhile project, then it’s worth it. But I don’t think I’ll do it forever. Just until I grow up!

I left art to become a nurse!
I became frustrated with commissions, I was no longer expressing myself through art which is what I loved.

I have forgotten how to do it as a hobby which is sad. I do murals for school and make costumes for dc but that’s about it now.

Oh gosh, me too! I also felt that the 'work' side really scraped the creativity tot he core, the worry, the deadlines and the competitive market becoming more diluted and hard to be seen in.

Interesting how some of you found it later...I wonder if, because I began when young, I am the opposite? I did the creative job through my youth when many only approach it at middle age when kiddies leave home? I also wonder if this is such a joy because it doesn't demand money and graft.

My art made me very isolated through the years, had a creative DH (ex now) who also hunkered down with me, we never 'lived life', just made art.

I long for new experience like a teenager, I am perhaps fed up of introspection and desire a way to work with others on a different level.

I think then, given your last post, it’s completely “normal” OP that you’ve become tired of it.
I’m also 50 and my jobs have been very people facing - in the civil service (immigration law) so I was in court, or managing a casework team, being a uni grad teacher in philosophy. So lots of theory and talking and arguing!
I find art is joyful because it’s precisely the opposite of that - I think I’d be better at it if I didn’t have a job (working in a school so more people) and my young disabled child because it does need constant attention and practice.

I can see that the life you had with your ex might have been attractive “then” but then life feels a bit stifled and enclosed and as it’s so bloody short a change is needed!

I also wonder if artists who change mediums regularly or in a big way are trying to keep the spark alive. I have tried many mediums when I first started (loved drawing as a child but stopped art at 13 when my art teacher mocked me). I now have no interest in working with anything other than oils or charcoal.

if you’d told me I’d go off creative writing I wouldn’t have believed it - and habit makes me still think in “story “ form sometimes.

So long as you are happier does it matter that you’ve stopped art as a career?

I’m fairly similar OP. I have an MA in Fine Art, painted professionally (i.e. full time and made a living from it). I have really gone off it for about 10 years now. I keep thinking I have given up completely then feel the urge to do something, so do about one painting a year. I do a very normal non-art related office job. Like you I got really tired of the introspection and isolation. The one painting a year I do now tend to be quite a different style to earlier work.

I do some creative writing for fun, usually competitions, some of which I’ve won. I enjoy that but don’t feel the urge to ‘succeed’ at it. I think writing a novel would probably be out of my scope.

I’ve just come more to terms that it’s ok to dip in and out of different things, and not force myself if I don’t feel like it. I feel lazy sometimes and then think well, no-one is waiting with bated breath for my next painting or short story, so pleasing myself is the most important thing.

I've managed to make a career out of my art in an applied way- I'm a signwriter. Sometimes it does bore me rigid, then I get another wave of enthusiasm, but because it's a "job" job I can kind of accept that, if that makes sense. I also spend about half my time out on site, which scratches my people itch.

I do feel really jealous of musicians/ actors though, whose metiers are inherently social.

I’ve done creative writing in some form or another all my life. I did a Masters in it during lockdown, and haven’t written since.

I took up art instead, and love oil and charcoal. The nag of writing never goes away, though. I wish it would.

These are such interesting replies, thank you veery much for sharing!

@Overthemhills I still think in visual form too, it's a hard habit to break away from after a while. I was fond of both traditional and digital painting, especially watercolour and oils. I would have loved to be able to handle charcoal! I always wanted to work with pastels too but never got the knack.

@DarkRootsBlue This sounds so similar to me, I also do around 1-2 paintings a year now. And true, if no one is waiting for you to produce something, there is a good element of freedom to try new things.

The PP who said that it 'nags' them and never goes away - I don't get this with visual art, but there is definitely a nag to create...something. And as time passes, I even seem to have lost the ability to paint, as if my brain structure has changed.

I think a good self test is to imagine you have everything paid up, no need to work, and are financially free in a perfect home/place/ lifestyle. What would you do? I personally, probably, would no longer paint, so that is quite telling, that I may have got into a groove over the years just because it was my 'job'.

I’m going through that self-test at the moment. I’m looking to move house in couple of years as I wind down to retirement. At the moment I have a studio in the house. It’s a big question as to whether I need a room / garden studio in future. I think probably yes, but at the same time…no? Really not decided! I still feel like I’ll have a resurgence at some point and get into it again.

Like pp I’m jealous of the social aspect of musicians and actors. I do play an instrument but am not talented in any way so wouldn’t play in public. I’ve done acting lessons and really enjoy the creative aspect of that, so may well do that again. There’s not any am-dram around me though, and not sure I want to do that anyway.