Thanks for the thread and blog! Great discussion.
I've struggled with these sorts of questions of trying to figure out how to make a living as an artist. Now I feel like I've got the financial part down, and I've focused on building my career for so long, that the art part is much more difficult. My career was sort of related to my art, but not really. Without getting into specifics, it's rather like someone who is an oil portrait artist having a job designing movie posters. You could say it's related, but it's not the same. My job is not really what I'm passionate about, but I do enjoy it.
I've gone through periods where the work is slow and I've had the opportunity (time- and money-wise) to focus 100% on my art. It was great at first but eventually I started to dislike and resent it. I became disappointed that I'd worked so hard to get to the point where this is possible, and I felt like I was suddenly flooded with all the negative self-talk that artists go through. (Things like, this is a waste of time; nobody will see the work or appreciate it; if I'm not earning money then what's the point; this is pretentious bullshit; etc.) I also felt a subtle negative judgment from friends and family, because it's very unusual to not have a job and be able to quit work in your 40s in the very expensive and work-focused city where I live. This self talk and judgment is nonsense because among my peers I am probably as well recognized as I'll ever be (having won awards, awarded grants, travelled for exhibitions, etc.) But self-defeating thoughts probably never fully go away for any artist - you have to just learn to ignore them.
Aside from the self talk and negative judgments / lack of understanding from others, making art is very solitary experience. (Not all art forms are like this of course, but mine is.) I'm not built for 100% solitary activity. It gets very draining over time. The last time I practiced art full time I was going to school, so surrounded by other like minded artists, and I had a PT job, so there was some group activity at my job that provided some social outlets. Without those, I felt like I was losing my mind.
I've read The Artist's Way, The War of Art and other really important books about this. Maybe it's time to reread them. But the social problem is hard to ignore.
Now I'm back to working PT in my somewhat related field, where I've been working for around 20 years, and I'm comfortable again, enjoying the work and socializing. But I'm hoping I'll be keen to practice art again and figure out a balance between the two.
I guess in the end "What I'm passionate about" isn't necessarily a passion as much as a compulsion that comes and goes. It's also a practice, something that I need to do every day whether or not I feel like doing it, in order to get better at it and keep the progress going. Sometimes I lose momentum on it and that's OK. I just have to keep going back to it. I certainly don't expect to make any money from it anymore. Whenever I try to do that, it just gets messy and I resent it even more.
I just googled 'art as compulsion' and found this very interesting article:
http://glasstire.com/2015/11/29/a-few-thoughts-on-compulsion/It's hard to define the relationship I have to making art, but this article describes it very well.
