Making Art and Making a Living

 Making Art and Making a Living: Adventures in Funding a Creative Life, by Mason Currey. 240 pgs. © 2026. 

One of my favorite poets is Philip Larkin. When I used to write more poetry, I learned that Larkin worked as a librarian while also publishing his work and it made me consider libraries as a possible career. Unfortunately, he wasn't mentioned in this short book but he easily could've been. Author Mason Currey says as much in the afterword, citing the endless examples of working artist stories that couldn't be included due to space.     

Here, Currey highlights mostly writers, poets and artists and their differing approaches to living and surviving while trying to stay committed to their craft. Some fared better than others. Fernando Pessoa and Virginia Woolf received inheritances. Baudelaire and Cezanne were granted allowances from already wealthy families. Kafka couldn't fully separate himself from his father's family business (which is probably why his novels remained unfinished). James Joyce and Vincent Van Gogh were moochers. Odd jobs, schemes and thievery abound. One of the most fascinating chapters discusses Jackson Pollack's rise to fame, primarily thanks to the promotional efforts by his wife, the artist Lee Krasner, and funding from art enthusiast and newly-minted millionaire, Peggy Guggenheim. Pollack's early work was already getting noticed, but a $2,000 loan from Guggenheim to buy a farmhouse in upstate New York allowed Pollack the space to develop his legendary "drip" technique. When he died, Krasner raised the price of his work from $8,000 to $30,000, which MoMa reluctantly paid. The sale is credited with the sudden rush of wealth in the art world; prices have been soaring ever since. Ultimately, the author uses all of these tales to highlight our relationship to art and asks if society needs to do more to support it. Great book for insight into staying the course while working on your own art.