Making Art, Making Rent, and Other Absurdities
Mason Currey returns to discuss how history's greatest minds actually managed to pay their bills.
Trying to make a living as an artist in 2026 is, to put it lightly, uhhhhhh difficult.
You constantly choose between making rent and making a masterpiece. You spend your days experimenting, making false starts, and moping around your apartment. You hope a sudden burst of inspiration miraculously pays your utility bill. Tomorrow, we figure out how to actually fund this absurdity. We go live for Draw Me Anything with the brilliant author and master of the creative process, Mason Currey.
He is the author of the bestselling books Daily Rituals: How Artists Work and Daily Rituals: Women at Work. He profiles the bizarre, highly specific routines of hundreds of history’s greatest minds. He also writes the fantastic newsletter Subtle Maneuvers, which tackles the exact struggle of wriggling through a creative life.
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Mason is a repeat guest on the show. Our previous conversation deconstructs the magnificent ordinariness of creative work. We uncover a bizarre truth. Despite living centuries apart, history’s greatest creative minds all share the exact same embarrassing habits. They wake up, and almost all get to work immediately. They take a long, mandatory walk to figure out their ideas.
We explore the absolute necessity of sensory deprivation. Maya Angelou rents a cheap motel room with nothing but a dictionary, a Bible, a deck of cards, and a bottle of sherry. It’s the perfect predigital version of aeroplane mode (with a hint of ‘are you ok, Maya?’).
Tomorrow, we tackle the money.
Mason has a brand new book coming out called Making Art and Making a Living. We’re going to dive into the messy, glorious, and torturous compromises gifted people make just to pay the bills. We discuss how Franz Kafka wriggles through his horrific insurance job, how Grace Hartigan survives on temp work, and how to balance the need to make art with the very real need to eat food.
The romantic idea of the starving artist is a complete myth. Real artists do whatever it takes. Edward Gorey works in publishing and illustration just to get by. René Magritte literally designed wallpaper and sheet music covers to fund his surrealist masterpieces. We are going to figure out how to balance the desperate need to make art with the very real need to eat food.
Researching books, historical artists, wrestling with glitchy broadcasting software, and trying to convince the internet to pay attention takes a lot of time and work. If you want to join the live stream, request a drawing, and help repay the massive labour of making this digital monastery run, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription for just $1 a week.
Grab a coffee, locate your favourite sketchbook, and tune in tomorrow (Tuesday) at 1pm Eastern time. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go take a completely unjustified three-hour walk.
‘til next time!
Your pal,
PS. Look, if this actually did something for your brain (or at least distracted you from the creeping dread of your own inbox for six minutes), please consider restacking this and sharing it with your people. It’s the only way the word spreads.
