REDEFINING SUCCESS

I was doom scrolling through Instagram, as one does, and I came across a clip from comedian Josh Johnson during one of his stand up shows, wherein he discusses how we misunderstand success within the arts. When we speak of success, we generally think of monetary gain or notoriety. However, he argues, this should not be how we think of success within the arts because financial success in art has nothing to do with the value or quality of the artist or artwork. I agree with this,

It’s very easy to compare oneself with our peers when we voyeuristically observe their careers through curated lenses. Whether it’s Instagram, Websites, Press Releases, or any other form of content, we often take the information at face value and decide that what we are looking at is a direct reflection of the level of our basic understanding of success (aka. financial or recognition). It feels like an obvious thing to say or a non-innovative observation to make in 2026 with what we understand about how Social Media functions, but let’s just not. I think we often need to be reminded that Social Media isn’t “real” and that it shouldn’t directly affect how we “feel” about our own careers and work. Feeling pressured or comparatively unsuccessful, is a completely natural mental process but we must, as Johnson states, redefine our understanding of success; that we individually decide what that looks like for each one of us and that we are authentic to that meaning.

Of course, if one’s meaning of success is in fact financial gain or fame, all the power to them. There’s is nothing inherently wrong with that. Life goals are life goals. However I would argue that if what we care about is the value of art in the world, if we focus on financial gain for its own sake we do a disservice to art. When we focus on making money through art or getting some sort of level of attention, these impulses do affect the way we make art. I have spoken to Artists who often feel the pressure of Galleries to continue producing the same work that allowed them to sell. There are artists who put more attention to gaining an online following through curated and performative content than having a trasnformative art practice focused career. There are those handful of “artists” who will copy work that seems aesthetically popular or trendy, and will replicate it in order to gain from the moment. And then there are those