Such is the lot of contemporary artists that many (most?) are forced into making their living by other means. However, while the scale of the phenomenon might be unprecedented, the phenomenon itself is nothing new. Impecunious musicians, filmmakers, painters and poets without family or friends in high places have long had to earn an honest crust - or a not-so-honest crust, in the case of Jean Genet and Jean-Luc Godard, both of whom resorted to stealing and reselling books.
Their illegal entrepreneurialism is covered in this Guardian article by Mason Currey, author of the book Making Art And Making A Living. Thanks to his piece I learned that John Cage became a mushroom expert and subsequently won the equivalent of £70,000 answering funghi-related questions on an Italian gameshow.
Presumably Currey's book - unlike his article - makes mention of Cage's fellow composer Philip Glass, who was at various times a plumber and a cabbie. He also had a removals business whose name - Chelsea Light Moving - was subsequently borrowed by Thurston Moore for his immediately post-Sonic Youth project.
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