Either an artist is highly paid or barely paid at all. And depending on your take of matters artistic, either state of affairs can be deemed glamourous.

The rich, successful artist, whose work has found acceptance and respect is seen as a model, someone to look up to, and draw inspiration from.

The poor struggling artist trying to eke out a living, and gain some sort of recognition, is likewise seen as a model, someone to look up to, and draw inspiration from.

It really depends on which side you like your toast buttered, but whichever that is, there remains a certain number of constants, a certain degree of what is known as BS, that must be tolerated regardless of where you are placed on the financial earnings spectrum.

First there are the opening nights. Your night of nights is sullied by the pretense and verbal garbage some people will speak merely for a glass, or ten, of your Moet. Or perhaps a, shall we say, mass produced sauvignon blanc, as the case may be.

And do such rounded art critics have any intention of buying one of your works? There’s a slight chance you might snare a sale before the last of the chardonnay and cheese vanishes down their art appreciating throats.

Then there are the people who really don’t know a thing about what they are viewing. They are only in an art gallery because they are trying to impress their latest partner, who said he or she loved “spending Sunday afternoons in art galleries.”

And he or she only wrote a line like that on their match dot com profile because they wanted to give the impression they are educated, articulate, and have an appreciation of the “arts”.

So no sale there. And to add insult to injury they are telling you, as they don’t realise that you are in fact the artist, that your work could be “produced by a five year old child”.

Are you beginning to get an idea of how difficult this all is?

Why are people born to suffer, be artists, and then die? Why do you go to arts school to learn the “rules” when art is all about freedom of expression, and not abiding by any rules?

How can making a salary of $5000 (in any currency) be deemed glamourous and fabulous. Well here’s how.

An artist is one of the few people who can create what they dream. Who can follow a wisp of inspiration and toil for days, weeks, or longer, to transform a blank canvas, a piece of wood, rock, or marble, or any other material, or media, they care to work with, into a story, a message, a statement, something that baffles the comprehension, and taxes the imagination of we the onlookers, and sometimes makes us simply stop and stare in awe.

Tell you what, no stockbroker, accountant (not even a creative accountant ), or socialite, could ever do that.

A love of money may indeed be the root of all evil, but any artist will tell they are not in it for the money, they are in it for the art.