A few months ago I started with the interview series on what success looks like to arts professionals and people working in the creative industry. It is an attempt to redefine what success is and find personal attempts to define a sustainable definition of creative work. 

Anastasia Karpova Tinari is the Director of Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, IL. She recently started her own project space, Anastasia Tinari Projects to exhibit more emerging contemporary artists. 

In several interviews I ask curators, academics, artists and other friends and colleagues from the creative field what their thoughts are on what success in the arts looks like for them. It is part of my long-term project "Art as Labor" that tries to approach labor issues in the arts and provide more personal conversations. It is not about working harder and to buy into the narrative that sacrification will eventually lead to success but about finding a sustainable way to work in the arts and to understand that creative work is a long-term commitment.

This interview is part of the series where I ask colleagues, artists, museum worker and other workers from the creative field on their thoughts on what success in their fields might look like. It's an attempt to facilitate a more personal perspective into the labor conditions in the creative field and to demystify the myth that sacrification will be rewarded with success one day. We need to find a more sustainable approach if we talk about work, in particular if we're talking about creative work. The interview series is part of my long-term project "Art as Labor" that tries to approach labor issues in the arts and provide more personal conversations. 

We are told the myth that working harder will be rewarded one day with success. The problem is that sacrification does not necessarily lead to the expected outcome and leaves us drained instead. We need to find a more sustainable approach if we talk about work, in particular if we're talking about creative work. In several interviews I ask curators, academics, artists and other friends and colleagues from the creative field on their thoughts on what success in the arts looks like for them. It is part of my long-term project "Art as Labor" that tries to approach labor issues in the arts and provide more personal conversations. It is about finding a sustainable way to work in the arts and to understand that creative work is a long-term commitment.

Today I open the interview series "What does success in the Arts look like?" to another creative field: Writing! Creative work is a very broad field and I am interested in the different approaches and insights. So today I am talking to Manjula Martin, who edited the incredible book Scratch—where she asked writers like Cheryl Strayed, Roxane Gay, Jennifer Weiner and many more—on the realities of making a living in the writing world. Read her thoughts on fame, rejection, financial stabilty and role models here.