What is a semi-professional artist?

There are two ways of looking at what a semi-professional is.

• Either they are somebody who is receiving payment for an activity but NOT as a full-time occupation NOR relying entirely on it for a living
• Or they are somebody who is spending a lot of time on an activity and aspiring to reach the standards normally associated with a professional - and money doesn't come into it

Or maybe both in varying degrees?

I've often commented in my reviews of art challenge programmes on the television about the blurring of the lines between "professionals" and "amateurs". Examples include:

• people who have worked as trained and professional illustrators or designers or architects in the past now declaring themselves as amateur artists
• art students who have just graduated declaring themselves to be professional artists - because that's what they are trying to be
• people who have an art degree and a full time working role in relation to art - but only paint in what they consider to be an amateur capacity(i.e. not trying to make it their full-time job)

So I thought it might be interesting to discuss.....

What is a semi professional artist?

Crop of a Photo by Chris Curry on Unsplash

The best way of coming at a definition is probably by trying to define the boundary either side.

The professional artist

Back in 2011 I wrote How do you define a "professional artist"? It generated a lot of interesting comments

This is how I defined a professional artist

My definition of a professional artist is purely pragmatic - it's an artist who makes their living mainly or entirely through their art.

So for example, that might mean a professional artist was somebody who was a practising artist who sold their art in galleries, also taught art in a school or college or workshops and maybe did some illustration work as a sideline.

In every other occupation, professional is defined entirely by occupational standards e.g.

• I was at one time a professional accountant - because I had qualified by passing the professional examinations of my institute and been admitted to membership of professional institute recognised as such by the government (Charter status etc). Doctors, dentists, lawyers and many other occupations which have a "duty of care" implicit or explicit within their professional role have very similar preconditions to being termed a "professional". 

For some professional standards are defined somewhat differently e.g.

• a professional golfer or tennis player or football player is somebody who does it full time and plays in what are recognised as the leagues or competitions for professional players

Sometimes people define it according to whether or not you get paid, not what standard you have reached

• in some contexts, professional means you get paid for doing what you are doing - and hence can no longer rank as an amateur or enter competitions for amateurs.  (Remember the disputes for a long time about who could/could not compete at the Olympics?)

Sometimes people define it according to how much you get paid for the value of work you produce.

Which leads us on to......

What is an amateur artist?

In the UK, there is a very simple definition of an amateur artist - in the "hobby" sense.
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