We recently connected with Ben Silberstein and have shared our conversation below.

Ben, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?

I do a lot of soul-searching about these questions. I will give a short answer and a long answer. Short answer: no and no. But, in the longer versions, both of these answers require context and both have caveats.

Am I happy as an artist? Sometimes, yeah. When I feel really inspired and when I feel motivated, there’s nothing else I would rather do than create things. I like writing a lot, I love to draw, I spend a lot of time on photography (this has been my most substantial creative focus for the past few years), I like doing digital stuff with Photoshop and Procreate, I like making videos, etc. The clearest path to fulfillment for me in this life is to do the things that I love and to do them chiefly because I love them. So I am frequently “happy as an artist” when I am working on things that make me excited. However, I find it nearly impossible to mix the things that I’m passionate about with commercial ventures without issue. It has been amazing at times to know that I have been able to earn money for various creative pursuits, but more often than not, I found myself stressed out and miserable due to the instability of the work. I didn’t ask for money up front in the beginning, so I got ripped off once or twice. I had another setback where I designed a sneaker and paid a manufacturer for a concept pair only to have them not do the work and pocket the money. And beyond that, I find it challenging to work with clients. There is much less fulfillment for me in designing a logo for someone (for example) than there is in me creating for fun. That is the reality for me. And if I want to do creative things for a living, I know I will not be fully satisfied. So that is the longer answer.

Do I wonder what it would be like to have a regular job? No, but not because I don’t think about having regular jobs. I used to be on a more conventional, corporate path and in many ways, it suited me better. The routine was safe and comfortable, but it also made me numb. The stability was nice, but my heart wasn’t in the work at all and I had a continuous identity crisis as a result. Plus I found that I was too tired to spend energy on my passions, which resulted in a lack of fulfillment and pent up self-resentment. But this is why I ruminate on these topics so much. I haven’t found what I’m looking for on the conventional path, and while I have found some things and answered some questions on the creative path, I’ve also been confronted with uncomfortable truths. I haven’t found the right combinations yet. I’m concerned there might not be a solution for me, but I don’t want to give up completely on the search. This will remain a work in progress…

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I didn’t start out on the creative path and as a result, I was very late to the game compared to many other artists. I never had any formal education in any of my creative pursuits. I started off on the path totally in the dark when I was 24. I was sharing my art online and built up a following quicker than I expected. Any legitimacy I had was from the online following I built, as opposed to the validation from classical, technical training. And this was fine for most things. But my lack of schooling absolutely held me back, in my opinion, and in some ways I felt like I was being punished for realizing my passions later in life.

I have done art and graphic design mostly. I’ve sold clothes, I’ve sold prints and originals of artwork, I’ve designed logos, I’ve done commissioned custom art for people, I’ve made videos, I’ve done photography at weddings, I’ve written, etc. Honestly, I’d be the last one to tell you that what I do is so much better than what anyone else does. In fact, I often feel like the artists and creatives I meet are much more talented and skilled than I am. The only thing I can say for certain is that I have always had a viewpoint and a voice. I think I know myself pretty well and am self-assured enough to trust and believe in the things I create. When I have conviction, I know I can create things that move people’s emotions. I try not to make it more complicated than that for myself. There are millions of other artists who could do anything better than I could, but that’s fine. I’m not competing with anyone, I’m just trying to figure my way through the world and express myself.

I’m proud that I took the risks I took. I’m really proud that I allowed myself to do things when I knew I’d be judged, even when enduring that judgment was really unpleasant at times. I’m proud that through all of this, I’ve grown and learned. I’m never going to be perfect and I might not ever like myself, but I try really hard to love myself and appreciate exactly who I am. I’m not so bad. I could be a lot worse. One of the hardest parts for me is to always have a desire to learn and grow more but to also be content with myself in the present. Sometimes it’s a bit of a push-and-pull, a lot like using creative pursuits to earn a living. I am doing my best to live in that gray area.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I struggled a lot with the business part of art. I never wanted to ask for too much money, I never wanted anyone to think I was wasting their time, and I genuinely always wanted to act in good faith. For probably the first year of pursuing art full time, I exclusively did work for people before asking for payment. I didn’t want people to think of me as being greedy or obnoxious, and I didn’t want to “make it about the money.” It was extremely important to me to do my best to keep the art above the money and I wanted this to be understood. And I think plenty of people appreciated this sentiment, but there were others who took it for granted or used it against me. One time, I made custom digital artwork for someone only for them to tell me they couldn’t pay anything for it. Another time, a company asked me for a digital rendering. I made it and sent it to them and they informed me that what I had submitted was a work sample, and that they had chosen another artist and wouldn’t be paying me.

Being out there by myself in a pretty much lawless marketplace full of bad faith actors, I learned eventually that there was no room for me to be an idealist. It honestly broke my heart to realize that I needed to protect my interests first and foremost, and I felt like in doing so, I was undermining part of the world’s larger fabric of trust. I started asking for money upfront and would make this clear from the beginning, though I would cringe every single time. At bare minimum, I would request half before I did any work, and this did the trick most of the time. The people who were looking to exploit me refused my terms and found someone else to do it for free (with or without knowledge or consent from the artist) and the people who were always going to pay me probably felt a tinge of disappointment that I was focusing so much on money, even if I was only doing it to protect myself. Art is something pure that I love, and often my strongest desire was simply to share it with others. But unfortunately, that is antithetical with the world of business, and that lesson jaded me quite a bit.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

I think that at one point, I saw a future with NFTs. I think in their purest form, NFTs could have helped many struggling artists and might have reshaped the playing field of art a little bit, if anything to make it more accessible. Ideally, NFTs could have helped more artists get paid for their work while also allowing more people to own artwork. But that’s unfortunately not what went down. NFTs became a celebrity grift so quickly, there was never a chance for society on the whole to trust in them. Plus, rather than restore parity to the art marketplace, they mimicked and even exaggerated the existing circumstances; the Bored Ape series demonstrated that artwork made in (probably) minutes could be worth hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. NFTs effectively became collecting “exclusivity” via culture clubs and converting facile digital renderings into money printers. The purity of the art making process was corrupted beyond any recognition with NFTs and I think that the damage has been done. Whether or not NFTs could have a place in less cynical society is certainly a question in general, but unfortunately, in our world full of get-rich-quick schemers, NFTs no longer have a place.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @bribe.nestle.sin (dormant)
• Other: bribenestlesin@gmail.com

Image Credits
All of those photos were candids taken by me. All individuals in the photos were strangers. These photos are not and were not for monetary gain, just personal projects