Can you make a living from art?

From my small life experience, I never regretted taking this path and I regretted not doing it sooner, but it is an afterthought. Living off of art is not easy at all.

The vast majority of my figurative contemporaries alternate direct sales, with small gallery sales, and teaching techniques or any environment surrounding this. The realistic or photographic representation of reality or realities is little inserted in the current economic world of art, except in rare cases.

All or almost all of us, at least in Spain, know, for example, Antonio López, who has become a figure through a whole series of reports in general media and even in the documentary film "El sol del quince". This promotion has come from several sources, first from his teaching work through generations at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Madrid, also from the gallery with which he has worked until now, then, of course, from the work of institutions and administrations. to have a representative figure of Madrid and Spanish art, and logically, also for his work that speaks in itself. But this article does not come in the sense of talking about Antonio, or his work.

In addition, Eduardo Naranjo, Claudio Bravo (although Chilean) and some others who remain in my mind, but who They are only known by people more inserted in the world. That is to say that Spanish figurative artists known to the world in general, in which their work has a sufficient estimated value to be able to make a living from it, I count them on one hand. Of course, note the comments that I have made, "Spanish", "figurative or realistic", not further than two generations, but enough to have a long and recognized career. Of those belonging to my generation or immediate ones, as I said, less, perhaps someone located in a very specific niche, who can receive institutional commissions, etc.

What do I want to get out of this whole article? Even having advanced the thesis, in the second paragraph, you practically cannot make a living (just) from making your own realistic work in Spain, and how frustrating it can be ( and it is a shared feeling), it hurts me that so many people approach me, sometimes asking me for advice, other times for mentoring, and it always helps, and I cannot be more optimistic towards them, and I disappoint them.

I have only one thing left to say, enjoy the present moment and its emotion, as that national radio host, Ramón Trecet, said, "seek beauty, it is the only worthwhile protest in this disgusting world."