Becoming an artist today is easy if you can commit to a life of poverty. The first step is to get yourself admitted to a prestigious College with an acclaimed Arts Program and expensive tuition. Then, work hard at your craft (painting, sculpture, photography etc.), learning all you can from some of the best artists/teachers available. Afterwards, graduate with lots of knowledge and expensive student loans.
Now you are free to go out into the world to discover that the knowledge that you have gained is basically useless because, a) the public doesn’t want to buy your art- it wants cheap posters and/or pretty reproductions of other people’s art, b) the techniques you spent years perfecting are no longer useful – computers can do a lot of what you learned to do by hand and, c) everyone thinks their child can do what you do.
So, you make your way in society, working at other jobs to pay the rent and because you really like to eat. It sounds depressing and it would be but you know something that most don’t. The real secret to being an artist is that you create your art because you love to create art. You have to do it! You feel more alive when you are creating and that feeling cannot be duplicated, everything else is forgotten when you are making your art and that is why the “oath of poverty” seems easier to take.