Art or Hobby?

5 min readFeb 6, 2023

Art or Hobby?

My artist friend was in artistic crisis. We all of us have them and the crises are so clever, they seem to always give us new takes on the theme. There seems to be an endless variety of artistic crises to be had. Knock one down, another, slightly re-framed one, will pop up to take its place.

This one my friend was in was a hobby crisis. It’s one where she asked herself something like, “Is my work just a hobby? Other people seem to see it that way.”

From the outside, I can tell her, “No, your artwork isn’t a hobby. It’s fucking art and all the people who don’t know the difference can fuck all the way off!” But I’ve been there and I know that some further unpacking might help all of us deal with this concept that is many artists’ least favorite word to hear about our work — hobby.

First, whether or not your art is a hobby has nothing to do with whether or not you get paid for it. Money isn’t fairy dust that transforms hobbyists into artists. An artwork is an artwork because it is an artwork, not because someone paid for it. People buy things with money that aren’t art all the time. Money doesn’t turn your couch into art when you hand over the cash. People buy stuff from hobbyists too. Money does not legitimize or create art. Artists create art.

So what makes it different from a hobby then, if it isn’t the professionalism of receiving money for it? How do I distinguish between a hobbyist and an artist if it isn’t money?

It’s actually really simple. It’s intention. If someone makes things with the intention of creating art, of creating something meaningful, with layers and craft, that is art. If they make things because they are called to it and follow a kind of internal aesthetic compass — that person is making art. If they sacrifice things and money and maybe even relationships for it — it’s even more likely that it’s art. If they broke open their heart to give it to us — it is certainly art.

Hobbies are often activities that people enjoy. Some of them are even the same medium as art. There are people who paint as a hobby or act (let’s not forget what Uta Hagen said about these folks) or sing or any number of things that are artistic but still not necessarily art, even if they’re doing arty things. The activity is not the art part. The art part is what it’s for and the spirit with which it is made.

This is not to denigrate hobbies in any way. I’m an artist. I make art. But I also have some hobbies which I enjoy and which enrich my life significantly — but I know the difference between the things that are my art and those that are my hobbies. Let’s take quilting. I’ve made some nice baby quilts for my friends in the past. I enjoyed making them and they are (I hope) attractive objects — but they aren’t art. Are there some quilts that are art? Hell yeah. I have seen some amazing quilted artworks. But I know what I’m doing when I stitch squares together is nothing like what Bisa Butler is doing when she makes a quilt. We may be using the same tools and doing similar activities but our intentions are wildly divergent. Calling my quilting a hobby isn’t an insult. It’s accurate to what I’m up to when I do it. It WOULD be insulting, however to call Bisa Butler’s artwork her hobby, even if she’d never sold a piece in her life. But anyone who has dedicated their life to art — at some point has experienced this kind of dismissal.

Mixing up art and hobbies is also problematic for hobbyists, I think. I follow the crochet subreddit and I think most of us would agree that crochet is most often a hobby. Could an artist make art using crochet? Absolutely — but you don’t see a lot of them. One thing I’ve learned from observing the posts from this community over the years is how even the hobbyists are not permitted to just enjoy their hobby and let it be a hobby and that’s it. So many people talk about being pressured to sell the things that they make — that few people can let them just make what they make without encouraging them to capitalize on their skill. Crochet a cute hat for yourself and the next thing you know, everyone wants you to start a hat business. It feels as though our capitalist society cannot let anyone just enjoy the things they make, be they hobby or art, without worrying about how we’re going to profit from it.

Honestly, I want respect for both art and hobbies. Arts and crafts have inherent value. (I think it’s important that these words are separate, even if they once meant more or less the same thing.) Nor arts nor crafts magically gain more value when someone pays for them. Trying to clarify the difference between hobbies and art has nothing to do with devaluing hobbies and everything to do with just understanding how to distinguish between them. To know art from craft.

Sure, I’m an artist, so I bring my artist brain to everything I do and sometimes I can make things outside of my mediums with an artistic sensibility but I promise you, I am not a quilt artist. I am not a gingerbread cookie artist. I am not an embroidery artist. Some things are arts and some things are hobbies. When you confuse an artist’s art for their hobby, you hurt their feelings because you have failed to understand their intentions. And when you say, “You should sell this.” It’s not always the compliment you think it is.