Redefining the Working Artist

The “starving artist” trope is outdated—and frankly, a bit insulting. Why should the creative labor of artists be romanticized as a noble kind of suffering? Being an artist doesn’t need to be defined by how many hours are devoted to one’s craft or how much money is earned from it. Many thriving artists in Houston work day jobs, often finding that their experiences in other industries inform and even elevate their creative work.

“I couldn’t do my art if I was a starving artist,” says pop singer Angelique. “I’m not built for it, and so I couldn’t have one without the other.” Angelique not only sings solo and in the family band Nowhere But Up, but also helps run the family’s entertainment business, AmericaStar Entertainment, and works as a paralegal. Far from a burden, her varied career supports her artistic life—and she enjoys it. She points out that wealthy individuals often have multiple income streams, so why shouldn’t an artist use a similar strategy?

Her experience is broad. In addition to music and legal work, Angelique has been a nanny, helped with taxes, and worked in home healthcare. Today, she works for a lawyer who is also a writer, giving her the flexibility to balance both professional and creative lives. The skills and connections she’s gained from non-arts jobs have directly impacted her music career and her business.

“I’ve definitely gotten in front of people who I wouldn’t have been in front of before if I didn’t have the day jobs that I’ve had,” she says. “It makes me a more knowledgeable musician and business owner.” Her background in taxes helps with paying contractors fairly, and her legal and business experience has taught her how to scale operations sustainably. She’s planning to go to law school to focus on real estate and probate law—while continuing her work as a musician and entrepreneur, much like her father, who owns AmericaStar, plays in the family band, and practices law.

Watercolorist Philip Weigand also embraces a dual-career life. He works in business and finance within the oil and gas industry and holds an MBA in energy finance from the University of Houston. Outside of that, he paints small, stylized portraits of cattle and intricate, technical renderings of oil rigs and missions, his attention to detail drawn from years of professional experience.

His background—growing up with an architect father and exposure to both art and engineering—informs his work, such as in Yellow Platform, a depiction of an offshore rig that fuses technical accuracy with artistic style. He finds his dual career path fulfilling and sees no need to pick just one. “I like the balance I have right now,” he says. “I’d consider doing art full-time, but it would need to reach a bit more critical mass.”

Therapist and writer Perez feels similarly. While he wouldn’t mind if book royalties paid more than the occasional Whataburger meal, he enjoys the way his full-time career intersects with his creative one. “Helping people get where they want to be emotionally and psychologically is extremely rewarding,” he says. He typically writes in coffee shops after work, often squeezing out 1,000 words per session.

His hypnosis practice also feeds into his writing—and vice versa. He credits self-hypnosis with helping him become a more prolific and committed writer, and his fiction often includes realistic depictions of hypnosis techniques. In Gum, a novel co-written with Richard Nongard, a character uses neurolinguistic programming to stay calm during a crisis. Perez is now working on a vampire novel, Stoker Rules, that plans to bring a grounded take on hypnotic powers to the genre.

Though the creative field is increasingly fraught—whether it’s the expectation to work for free “for exposure” or growing competition from AI-generated content—many local artists prove that having a day job doesn’t dilute their artistry. In fact, it can deepen it.

“Even when I make it big, I don’t want to stop working in law,” says Angelique. “I enjoy both of my jobs so much, and I want to have several businesses always. It doesn’t mean that you’re a failure if you have a day job—it means that you’re successful. It literally means the opposite of what everybody thinks.”