Holiday Survival Tips for Starving Artists Part 2: Talking to Your Family About Your Work
Seasons greetings!
Let’s get right to it. Talking to your family, and strangers, about your work. Woof.
If you find yourself grimacing, clenching, panicking when you think of your relatives (or strangers at various events), peering at you expectantly, after asking you things like:
What do you do?
And how’s that going?
What’s the end game here?
Have I seen you in anything?
To help you through those crunchy encounters, I've got some tips and a handy mad-lib for you to download. My goal is to help you say something, feel good and move the conversation forward swiftly.
Keep it SIMPLE. Breathe.
It takes a lifetime to become an artist. Remember: you are doing something bold by pursuing work in a safety-net-free field. Your family wants you to be safe -- sometimes this gets expressed badly.
IMHO most people aren’t malicious. They probably feel out of their depth asking you about your work. It’s rarely personal.
Tips for talking to your family (& strangers) about your work
Give yourself a label using words they will recognise.
Ex. "I’m an actor and a writer."
Get ready to trot out 1-3 examples
Ex. "These days I’m working on completing a draft of a play and I’m in the process of finding the right partners to present the show with in the new year."
Have a canned description of your play/project/show ready to go.
Ex. "It’s a dark comedy about aging, time and how to live without fearing death."
Move the conversation away from you and onto the themes of the project.
Ex. "It’s been a fascinating project because I’ve ended up learning about behavioural economics. Do you know about that?"
Get out of the hot seat. Ask them a question! 2 options.
If you feel like they’re with you, ask them a question that pertains to your project. Ex. "What’s a piece of advice you’d give to yourself at 25?"
Really flip it and ask them about their own work, family or hobbies. Ex. "What have you been working on recently? How is your partner/child/cat? Have you done any travelling this year?" And get ready to ask follow up Qs.
Prepare your response about why you’re not “farther ahead”
In those uncomfortable moments when someone says, "Why aren’t you on TV or working at this major festival?"
Ex. "Oh that would be great, but my focus right now is creating my own work and learning how to write funding applications. This is what’s most meaningful and useful for me building a career where I can be self-reliant and have longevity."
Know how you want to deal with remarks about you not being an artist full-time.
Options: Laugh it off/make a little joke about it. Say nothing, just look at them (this is so powerful). Ignore it. Walk away. Say you’re “Working on it” and change the subject.*
Remember: artists in the UK earn an average of approx £16K, of which approx £6K (36%) comes from their art practice. In Canada, actors and comedians earn on average $18 - 25K. Do NOT engage with people who don’t get it. Don’t let anyone make you feel small.
A more detailed MAD-LIB version of the above for you, here. To make sure you’re well armed, download it, fill in your stock answers and stick to your script!
May these tactics save you from too many questions, bemused looks or condescending quips!
* These are deliberately conflict-adverse tactics because experience has taught me, family gatherings are not the place to try to radically shift your relationship with a family member or get into a debate about the value of the arts. I’ll do a letter about how to have meaningful convos about your work in the new year.