The Nature of Being a Professional in the Arts: A First Glance

Ivan, the consummate professional in the studio

“When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.”

– Confucius

We toss around the words professional in the arts as if they have a single, fixed definition. In the business world, it’s often shorthand for a particular image: a crisp résumé, a tailored wardrobe, punctual emails, and a polished pitch. But what does it mean to be a professional in the arts?

Spoiler: it’s not about a suit and tie.
It’s not about fancy titles or a viral following.
And it’s definitely not about pretending you have it all figured out.

In the creative world—whether you’re a working artist, a gallery owner, a museum director, or an arts program leader—professionalism in the arts takes on a far more disciplined, personal, textured, and evolving meaning. It doesn’t live on a business card. It lives in how you show up: for your work, for your collaborators, for your community, and, perhaps most importantly, for yourself.

But most of us don’t stop to ask:
What does being a professional in the arts really look like?

This is the beginning of a deeper conversation—one that we’ll continue unpacking. But for now, here’s a first look. Not the whole meal, just a taste.

Not a Role, A Practice, A Relationship

Too often, professionalism gets reduced to a role we perform. We edit our bios and polish our portfolios. We try to look the part.

But for those of us, being a professional in the arts isn’t about appearances—it’s about a relationship, a practice. A relationship to your work, your integrity your process, your vision, and your voice.

It’s the muralist who keeps painting after the funding falls through.
The independent curator who rebuilds a cancelled show from scratch.
The ceramicist, or jewelry artist, who reworks a piece for the third time, knowing no one will ever know how many hours it took.

Being a professional in this field means returning to the studio, or the stage, or the spreadsheet, not because you’re being watched—but because you’ve made a promise to your work. Besides, you take your creative life seriously, not because it’s lucrative (sometimes it isn’t), and not because it’s glamorous (spoiler: it rarely is), but because it matters.

And that’s the essence: professionalism is an inner posture, not just an external performance. My early memories of seeing professionalism at work in real time, was watching, over and over again, my father Isa Barnett deliver paintings on time to his agent in New York, getting up at 4 AM to meet a train at Philadelphia’s 30th street station, to hand off to a messenger service a picture that a client needed for a magazine story. Isa would stay up for days at a time, “pouring over” the details and composition of a picture.  Constancy always is at the heart of professionalism.

Madmen days, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Isa on the right, Ivan Barnett collection.

Structure and discipline That Protects the Spark

Many artists are taught to believe that business and creativity live on opposite ends of a spectrum. As if one threatens the other and discipline is a betrayal of inspiration.

But, those who truly make a life in the arts—those who last—know that the opposite is true.

Professionalism doesn’t smother creativity. It protects it. And, mentorship builds the structure that gives creativity room to breathe, space to grow, and time to unfold.

For a gallery owner, professionalism might mean balancing artistic vision with budget realities. Artists might know how to set boundaries with clients or collectors as professionals. Meanwhile, an arts organization leader, would align mission with management—holding space for bold ideas and sound strategy.

Being a professional in the arts means learning to manage your energy and your time—not perfectly, but intentionally. This also means creating the containers, calendars, contracts, and conversations that keep your work flowing instead of flailing.  There are many examples of brilliant artists and crafts people who have managed to successfully live in both worlds.  Georgia O’Keeffe, Andy Warhol, Mary Casset, among just a few, and in more contemporary settings, Fritz Scholder, Charles Lolama, and artist Wendell Castle. 

“Santa Fe’s trains ran on time,” time and again…year after year, 2021 Ivan Barnett

Hold Your Vision
and Stay Open To Serious Play

In the arts, we don’t work in a vacuum. We’re in conversation—with culture, with history, with our audience, and with ourselves. And that conversation can be noisy, even disorienting at times.

A professional learns how to listen without losing themselves.

They know how to connect—genuinely—with patrons, clients, community members, and collaborators. She learns to speak about their work in ways that others can understand. Additionally, a professional communicates value not through hype or hard sells, but through honesty, clarity, and passion.

True, true professionalism also requires discernment. Specifically, this means knowing when to say “yes,” when to pause, and when to say “no” to preserve the integrity of your vision.

It’s about staying rooted in your why—even when the outside world is pulling in different directions.

On Showing Up Seriously

Perhaps more than anything, professionalism is revealed in how you navigate uncertainty.

The creative path is full of unknowns. Projects fall through. Funding dries up. Trends shift. Crises emerge—personally, politically, and globally.

Being a professional doesn’t mean you never wobble. It doesn’t mean you’re immune to doubt. It means you face difficulty with a kind of creative integrity.

Show up to hard conversations with honesty. In addition, honor your commitments when it would be easier to vanish. Finally, admit you don’t have the answer, but stay in the process anyway.

Professionalism isn’t about perfection. It’s about presence. Also, it’s how you hold yourself—especially when no one is watching—or when your wave of financial success has slipped out of reach.

Santa Fe’s train depot, 2021, Ivan Barnett

Creative Excellence and Generosity Can Coexist

Lastly, and perhaps most powerfully: Being a professional creative in the arts means understanding that your success doesn’t happen in isolation.

You didn’t get here alone. And you won’t get there alone either.

Professionalism means lifting others as you climb. It’s mentoring younger artists and giving credit where it is due. The word means respecting the work of your peers. It’s understanding that your own creative growth is tied to the health of the larger ecosystem.

There is nothing unprofessional about being generous. In fact, some of the most accomplished professionals I know are also the most open-handed—with their knowledge, with their time, with their support.(Generosity and excellence aren’t opposites. They’re companions.  Yo Yo Ma, the world acclaimed cellist is a perfect example of that.  Even “The Stones will go out of their way to bring on stage a “complete unknown.”  The Boss, Bruce Springsteen, is continuously mentoring young musicians.)

If any of you are reading this above, you have been a gift of “that artistic break.”  You must see and accept it as the disciplined gift that it is, knowing that it may only come once in your career.  Therefore, be sure you pay deep gratitude to those that say “here’s your turn” and then proceed to live up to the gift that it is.

Altogether, In my early career, my dear artist friends Stuart and Paul Dyck introduced me to the now famed gallerist in Scottsdale, Joanne Rapp, who had the most important gallery in the Southwest, Hand and Spirit, in the 1970 and 1980s.  She gave me an exhibition of my new sculpture and for me it changed my creative life.

Santa Fe’s rail yard, Closing Time, 2021, Ivan Barnett

Play Seriously Now

This isn’t a checklist. It’s a doorway.

This is not a blueprint for what you should be doing every day. As a matter of fact, it’s an invitation to consider who you are becoming as a professional in the arts—not only through what you make, but through how you move, how you speak, how you lead, and how you respond to change.

We’ll go deeper in future essays—into what it looks like to practice professionalism in the specifics: How do you build systems that support you as a creative? All in all, you might ask, do you handle pricing, boundaries, or burnout because we have become a mini- production line in our own studios? As a result, do you hold space for your voice while still growing your audience?

For now, pause.  Let this be the beginning.

Ask yourself:
What does being a professional in the arts mean to me—when no one is watching, when the lights are low, when the work is hard, knowing that the “feast or famine” life of artist’s and reality for most gallery owners, is a reality and one that will be there for all who dare, to say, “This is my life.”  I’m here to say what few do say.  You have chosen one of the most difficult careers and lives there is…being a professional creative.