Why I don't jump in

It seems that  I have been struggling with being an artist for most of my adult life. I have struggled with the definition, variously using the terms craftsman, artist, and maker. I have also always stood on the edge and never jumped in with both feet. I have often asked myself why I don't throw caution to the wind and try out the life of an artist. What would it take for me to take a year off and be an artist?
I never have because of two main factors. The first is my own unreliability. I can gain a proficiency in most things in short order. I inherited from my parents; an ability to soak up different techniques like a sponge (an ability that my mother only discovered in the last few years). I can sometimes pick up a new craft by picking up a book and reading about the process. This is how I learned meadmaking and bookbinding. The trouble is that I can never seem to stick to it. I find reasons to stop progressing in one domain and move on to another. It can be because the next step requires costly tools or materials or that I am fascinated by something else or it can be that the other projects or life goals get in the way and I give up.
The second deterrent factor is the examples I have from the two truest craftsmen that I have personally known. My father, who is cursed with the same wandering attention as I have, spent a number of years doing custom cabinetry. It was an unsustainable model based on a high level of skill with quality materials against the wearing down of the crafstman hour by hour. He eventually had to leave that line of work. The other example is of my high school ceramics teacher who kindled in me my love of pottery. He told me of his early days as a production potter where he would work constantly to produce salable pottery and then truck it around to galleries trying to get his work shown. He eventually moved to the world of teaching where he could have a more reasonable schedule.
I don't think that I can live either of these lives. I cannot throw away my steady reliable job to give this a shot.
Can I?

Love of Art

Scooter, Novia, and I went to a play reading last Monday. It was for a play called "Sextet" by Tommy Smith. The play was emotionally brutal and sexually charged (and even sexually brutal in parts). Afterward, we had a conversation about the play focusing on the sexual relationships, friendships, hatreds, and betrayals in the three love triangles in the play.
One of the themes in the play that can be overshadowed by the physical and emotional violence is the relationship between the characters and their art. In each of the three groups there is a composer and in one of the groups there is also a painter. (They were real historical characters but the author took great license so I will not go into who they were. Its also beside the point). The point is that all of the artists hated their work.
I have a mixed reaction to artists who hate their work. I know that the creative process can be frustrating, and I know that in the translation from concept to reality something is always lost. The thing that keeps me from despairing about that loss is that something is always found in the process. As an artist (and  I still have difficulty calling myself that), one must be open to the experience and not dominated by some monolithic vision. The inner word cannot ever be truly translated to speech or art, and to obsess over constructing something in the material world that perfectly embodies an artistic concept is an impossible task. Pursuit of this ideal can be fulfilling and wonderful but falling into hatred and despair over the inability to achieve the impossible helps nobody.
I have had my fair share of upsets when a project fell apart literally or figuratively but I am always energized by the creative act. This summer, I am not taking any classes and that has allowed me to work on some projects. I have been binding books, throwing pots, working wood, and having a blast. I will never be a tortured artist, I lack the narcissism, the self loathing, and the stamina. I wonder if this also means that I will never be a great artist? (I don't know what the right adjective is here influential? celebrated? ground-braking? popular?)
How about you? how do you relate to your art?

Dreamlines

I have been reading Tim Ferriss's "The 4 Hour Work Week. I am finding it to be an interesting attitude adjustment. Just as Robert Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad Poor Dad" re-arranged my thoughts on what assets or liabilities are, "The 4 Hour Work Week" has seriously affected my thought process on what it means to work during the best years of your life.
I understand that the concepts in either of these books cannot be widely used by the public at large. If everyone in the world (or in the country) tried to make their living in real estate or through some niche internet business, then there would be nobody to do the real actual work that keeps the economy running. These books are very first-world information-age. It may be somewhat conceited to say that I am special (and everyone thinks that they are) but I am not your average minimum-wage lifer. I am (or will make myself into) the kind of person these books apply to.
The thoughts that are going through my head now are about the whole concept of retirement and its place at the end of a long career. The contemporary wisdom is that you are supposed to work hard for the best years of your life, saving and sacrificing so that when you are old and sick you have enough money to pay high prescription prices long into your 80's and 90's. As you can no doubt tell from my word choice, I am not enamored with this prospect.
To satisfy the traditional model, I have spent a lot of time reading books and have been testing a small (but growing) portfolio of stocks for a few years. I am very dedicated to constructing a healthy retirement. I keep informed of the current financial environment and of the different things that people invest in. This approach is a slow and deliberate one. The question remains, what about now? what about the best years of my life?
Tim puts forth the idea that you don't have to work your whole life away and that you can create cashflow from a low maintenance business selling some niche good and outsourcing almost all of the work. I am not taking his approach for gospel but he still has quite a few lessons to teach about what work you need to do for yourself and what you can pass off for others to do for you. He encourages you to reach for your unrealistic goals called "dreamlines" (like timelines for your dreams). Sometimes sensibility can be a cage that you only realize you were in when you look back at it from the end of your life. I have been caught for a long time between the desire for things that seem unrealistic and the inability to make that leap of faith and give it a shot.
It really reminds me of some of my artist friends and how they are willing to work second jobs or collect unemployment in order to do the acting that they love. I have been wondering if I have that kind of dedication.
To that end, and with the added support of my currently stable job, I am going to dedicate myself a little bit more to artistic goals. I have bought a used electric kiln and will be borrowing an electric wheel from a friend. It seems that an Etsy shop is inevitable.

There is a logical break here.
I am talking first about working less and then talking about adding ceramic work to my workload. The link is that I would be doing what I love to do. Would it really be work? some people say that the best way to ruin a hobby is to make it your job, while others say that if you find a job you love you will never work another day in your life. I will find out. I am going to give some of my time to being an artist with an art blog and website and store. I already have the name and will be filling in the spaces in the next couple of months. I am Makermead.com I have @makermead on twitter and I have the username Makermead on etsy. I have been slowly collecting these things over the past 6 months with this dream in mind. I have been denying it even to myself but this is what I want and I have to try it.
The craft that I am best at is ceramics, and that is where I will start, but that is not where my passion ends. I want to do woodwork, weaponsmithing, bookbinding, painting, writing, and meadmaking. I don't know what is next on the list but I know that there will be more. I want to visit others and do write-ups on my blog. I want to show off my shop and others, my methods and the methods of my contemporaries. I hope that this project will grow from a simple shop selling bowls and cups to the foundation of a multiple discipline artistic endeavor with occasional collaborations and a community. I hope this is only the beginning.