Making a living at what you love – Artists find that business strategies can help them succeed

Seamus Kiel fit the stereotype of the starving artist. Waiting tables to support his photography, he moved to San Francisco from New York because "I thought it would be easier to be poor here than there."

But two years ago, he’d had enough. "I thought, ‘I’m doing the artist thing successfully, but I’m not successful in a way to pay myself,’ " he recalled. "I don’t know how to market myself, sell myself, find my audience."

Kiel, 35, decided to quit his day job at a nonprofit organization and learn the business skills needed to survive on his photography. In doing so, he joined the ranks of a large but often unrecognized Bay Area population — artist-entrepreneurs.

Ilana DeBare, Chronicle Staff Writer

Full Story: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/12/18/BUGN8G8ML01.DTL

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