Home for the Holidays as an Artist

The holidays can be a magical time of year. It’s a time when we see friends and family that we don’t often see. This can be amazing, but it can also come with some stress. How do you explain to your aunt what it is you do?

The farther along your creative journey, the easier this conversation can be. There are often things you can point to, to show that you’re successful and that everything is working out. There is even a case to be made that it’s not bad at the beginning of the journey too. When you can avoid the question by talking about your day job, or get them excited about the journey you are just beginning.

The hard time is when you are in the middle of the journey. When you have been at for a while, with little to no success that would make sense to a relative on the outside. So how do you deal with these questions?

First of all, understand that for the most part, these questions are coming from a place of love, and curiosity to understand your journey. They are trying to connect and understand what it is you’re doing. As for the harsher questions and comments, like when will you give up and get a real job? Understand that most of these questions and comments are more of a reflection on the person making them and not you. They are projecting their own fears and insecurities onto you.

So, how do you deal with these family and friends? Mostly with kindness. It doesn’t hurt to think ahead of time how you want to explain what you have been up to. A couple of quick tidbits are usually all you need to satisfy their curiosity. When I get asked about my comic, I usually respond that it has a nice but small audience that I am trying to grow. That is typically enough to satisfy their curiosity.

Another way is to find a way to show them. For my comic, it’s handy to be able to show them a couple of them for them to see what I am doing. This isn’t always an option depending on what your medium is. I am also working on writing a novel, which isn’t something I can easily show progress on.

You can also showcase what you do in other ways. I will usually use my art skills to draw a family Christmas card that we send out.

There is also my favorite way of dealing with these types of people. That is to deflect and turn the conversation onto them. Most people would rather talk about themselves anyway, so let them. Then excuse yourself from the conversation and get another drink of egg nog.

It can be hard to have these conversations with people who don’t get what you have been up to but don’t let a few awkward conversations ruin what can be a fun and magical holiday season. Happy Holidays!