For artists who make a living from their art, it’s dependent on somebody being willing to pay for their art. I guess this is true for the monetary value of anything—it’s worth however much someone is willing to pay for it.
But if your quality of life is correlated with the income that you get from your art, then you are faced with a very hard decision if your art takes a turn in an unprofitable direction.
An honest artist will still pursue the art they care about, but then their quality of life will decrease because nobody is paying for their art anymore.
Or they can sell out and make art that people are willing to pay for.
Or they can get a day job and still pursue their art in their free time.
I think of the undiscovered artists working in back offices or waiting tables. Or the guy that I met at a Thai restaurant in San Francisco who has a job in tech but lives in a one-bedroom apartment that he calls “the studio” with his art and paint-covered canvases all over the place.
Art and money are two different worlds. One is chaotic and unstructured and even unhealthy at times. The other is based on our primal needs and fuels progress in the material and physical.
When we can, there seems to be a purity in keeping the two separate.