We were lucky to catch up with Christian Dines Dines recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Christian Dines, thanks for joining us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

In creative work, the work should always come first. Always. Artists are compelled to create in their mediums because they have something to say, not because they want access to a perceived lifestyle or think playing on the internet all day is better than waking up to work at a bank or whatever. Anyone who isn’t desperate enough to do what it takes to make their vision a reality — including work for someone else — is, in my opinion, less of an artist, if one at all.

While I do make money from my artistic endeavors (and am always happy to make more), they never afford me in and of themselves the means to both live and continue to produce art. I am far from alone in this, and many very well-known and vastly more influential artists than myself have needed to supplement their income. I am of a generation that was just old enough to have examples of record sales, commissions, and academic career options that then absolutely evaporated right when I was hitting my late teens. So, I could cry about it, or I could get to making things anyway. Elizabeth Murray was a teacher. Warhol did tons of commercial work. If D. Boon always had to wake up and go to work all through the Minutemen right up to his untimely death, well, then it’s damn sure good enough for me to be doing things.

This has advantages, despite seeming antithetical to what people conceive of in serious artists:

First, I am able to fund my endeavors myself, which means I retain the control and the autonomy. I can say exactly what I mean to say rather than what someone else decided will trend on social media for a week or sell more shoes, etc. It might take a little longer, but if you’re committed to the arts you should be in it for the long haul regardless. Don’t get me wrong – I’m always happy to entertain propositions from like-minded partners (including those who manufacture and distribute footwear), but not having the mandate really takes so much pressure off and lets you get to bigger and better ideas.

Secondly, there is that very same longevity. People early in their artistic careers are mostly all obsessed in the same ways – “Never an office, never a day job, never, never, never . . . and always before 25.” It’s a very limiting, outdated mindset (immature, if I’m being frank) and, germane to this particular point, often discourages good artists from further developing themselves or deters them from continuing to create throughout life. Vonnegut didn’t find success until his 50s.

When you know at the very least that you CAN always make it yourself, then you can be free enough to make the kinds of things that might attract new partnerships that grow a career that you really mean and can stand behind. The only way in which jobs are the “fall back plans” your mom wanted you to have is if you stop making art once you have them. Otherwise, they are financial pools from which you can siphon funding for your arts. When I was last living in Southern California, I had 4 jobs and was fronting a version of Love Ethic and was making collage work and was still incredibly, destroyed-credit, paycheck-to-paycheck broke (which, happily, I am no longer).

Thirdly, your creative drive makes you a better hire with stronger assets that are applicable to an extremely diverse field potential. Think of every dead-end shopper in an office who only has a consumer-grade understanding of how all the art and creative endeavors around them are made, and then think of what an advantage you as a creative have over them knowing how to bring an idea to fruition. Project management? My entire life is an assemblage of projects!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I was born and raised in the western suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, particularly McKees Rocks, which has for some time ranked as the most dangerous area in the state of Pennsylvania with drug and property crimes way above the national average. Please understand, though, that this all operates in juxtaposition to lawns and churches and seemingly normal surroundings as a kind of a transition area from downtown into the suburbs and a gateway toward the more rural suburbs surrounding the airport. I want to emphasize that, like anywhere, there are a lot of kind-hearted, well-meaning grandparents and teachers and firefighters and families at the park and so forth, but also a lot of bigotry, suspicion, and political bosses. Serious cocaine and heroin problems, especially among the students. I shouldn’t know as many people as I do who are dead from just trying to mimic what they saw on MTV at the time. This dichotomy is at the heart of everything I make, and it opens up questions about what is inevitable, what we can choose, whether we can forgive and correct flaws in ourselves and others, admitting our shared humanity.

I single-handedly cite my college education as the catalyst that changed me as a person and actually gave me something to say through the arts. I know that most people use college as an excuse to drink while they live off of government loans — I sure did for my first year. But then I had an intro to philosophy class when I was 19 with the spectacular Dr. Robert Cogan, who taught us about the basic problems philosophers try to deal with, and especially his lesson about philosophical problems.

The premise is simple – a lettered list of statements is shown on the projector, and you write down all the letters of the statements you agree with as true. Then, a numbered list is shown with more statements, and you do with the numbers as you did with the first list. Afterward, contradictory letter/number combinations are revealed, and you discover that you held two statements as true which are mutually exclusive (free will vs. determinism, etc.) — you have a philosophical problem.

That lesson left an absolutely indelible mark on me, and facilitated my thinking critically not only about abstract concepts, but about myself. As a practicing communications ethicist in my arts, I am hyper-focused on the messages creators disseminate and to what end, but primarily because I and billions of other people are very passively shepherded by these things. When in a song or in an essay or image I am critical of something, it is because I received it, have come from it, and have seen what a spectacular dead end most of the average way of living to shop provides for people — especially how hollow the offerings and motivations often are of most so-called creative people.

When I play in my band Love Ethic, many of my lyrics are punctuated with question marks. When I design internal messaging for an organization, I strive to make an informed, relatable case for what is being promoted. While I have tackled many subjects, everything I do in artistic, corporate, or consultation settings in some way encourages stakeholders, customers, and appreciators to think that same way about their own motives, and, importantly, reserve the right to continually amend themselves when warranted.

.

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

The Myth of Discovery. We learn it from movies and TV and it goes like this: Cinderella is a beautiful supermodel who works by sweeping up in a coffee shop for years where she is predominantly, unbelievably ignored by her daily patrons until one day, an average-looking middle-aged man with a briefcase drops a hot cup of joe as he is rushing to keep a vague appointment at 2:15. When Cinderella comes to mop up the spilled coffee and pieces of broken mug on the floor, the man exclaims, “Say, what’s a dame like you doing in a joint like this? You aughtta be in the PICTURES!” And then Cinderella drops her apron on the ground and walks out of her job without giving notice, after which she gets into the man’s limo and then the camera cuts to her receiving $10 million and a lawyer and she lives in Entertainmentland forever and SCENE.

Far too many people have a consumer-grade understanding of most industries, including the arts. This isn’t their fault – even truck drivers and door lock manufacturers become exclusive clubs in the name of competition and proprietary secrets. The problem arises, though, in that the arts are presented as a lottery out of banality to everyone through all media at all times, but with no roadmaps on what kinds of work are required (or even THAT work is required) or where you could apply to get there. This leads to a lot of guesswork and a lot of spectacular failure. As the old Mitch Hedberg joke goes: “Do you want some more homemade Sprite?” “Not until you figure out what else is in it!”

But, figure we must! In a world of 8 billion people, there aren’t enough of those with discovery power to go around, even if a few of those billions make the myth a reality every now and again. I could have made so many more things real, earlier and of better quality, if I had just gotten even an entry-level job and done things myself rather than living in abject poverty working menial jobs and trying to figure out how to get “discovered.” Anyone who says you have to starve wants you to starve to death so there can be more room for themselves. Be sociable, reliable, polite, and take what you’re doing seriously. Be as much a fan as a maker, hold yourself to the standards to which you hold others, find out how much things cost, raise the money and make the art real.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The works are intrinsically good. Art, first of all, is communicative. When it is shown/performed/read/shared, it also occupies a duality of selfish satiation and altruism. Yes, you the artist get the benefit of the therapy of output: the catharsis, the attention, the seeming community, the “being heard/seen/whatever” of it. But, importantly, in putting your unique perspective on offer as a option for others to consider, you are providing proof of our ability to be considerate in the first place. This is a far cry from the stimulus-response reductionism so many of our marketers and their researchers would have us espouse.

Andy Warhol would often remark that everything is just work, and he was right. Everything is the exercise of our capacities, and it is very rewarding to do so. Nothing can provide a greater sense of agency or autonomy. Lifestyles are flimsy and may or may not come to you (and may or may not be what you thought they would), but your works can outlast all of that. So, if you make completing your works the cornerstone of your lifestyle, then you can remain open to what will unfurl as your own path to fulfillment. If you’ve seen it online or whatever, then it’s too late for what you saw to happen to you – it’s already said and done. Copying what products were successful for others is like seeing a plane in the sky and trying to board it. You have to get a ticket for your own flight, and the only place you can get one of those is in the work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://loveethic.net/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/love_ethic
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LoveEthic/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@loveethic1770
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1SwxqFB0PFJ9zC7QUcTmzz?si=pkOnNuFyRdSwfdAk1wXB3g

Image Credits

Overhead performance shot by Ana Eberts.
B&W performance shot by Caiolinn Ertel.
Album cover, poster art, and painting images by Christian Dines.