Commercial Success Can Help an Artist, but is Not Necessary

As much has commercial success can obviously help an artist, it can also be an entrapment. A lot of artists would even prefer not to sell their work if they didn't need to. The true joy of the creative process has nothing to do with selling your work, only in sharing it, take this quote from Van Gogh:

"I repeat, supposing that like the bulb trade at the end of the last century, so the art trade, along with other branches of speculation at the end of this century, will disappear as they came, namely rather quickly. The bulb trade may disappear - the flower-growing remains. And I for myself am contented, for better or for worse, to be a small gardener, who loves his plants."

-Vincent Van Gogh

Ideally I would give all my work away to people who would enjoy it and take care of it. The reality is that if an artist is serious about creating full-time, there comes a point when you have to find a way to sell your art and earn a living.