Passion or a paycheck: What makes an artist?

Kylie Marsh

4th July, 2024

Artist Ri’Aasa Toppin

EDITOR’S NOTE: a previous version of the article mentioned a local tattoo artist and his work, implying that this artist was a person of color. This artist's information has been removed from the article to maintain the guidelines of the grant. 

When you think of a working artist, you might think of Banksy or Kehinde Wiley; people whose art sells in private auctions for millions. But there are also hundreds of artists that make a living – or make do – off of creativity, like tattoo artists and freelance designers.

Kiara Chatterjee, or smalldarkandbright on Instagram, always liked to draw and doodle as a child.

Collaborative Black Wall Street mural by @jaguar_perry and Chatterjee located at BullMcCabes

“I always felt it was the best way I could try to communicate all the little things I had in my head; plus, I was really into cartoons, and I always wanted to make some of my own,” she said. “As I got older, my parents and family talked me out of pursuing art as a serious thing.” 

Chatterjee stayed determined to continue pursuing her passion. After pursuing an art studies program at NC Central, she is now best known for her public art – decorating signal boxes, sidewalks and businesses around the Triangle. A natural introvert, Chatterjee uses portraiture to connect with people. Through her artistic renderings, she understands what makes people unique with every stroke.

“A big part of it is being very interested in understanding people,” she said. “I like the diversity, I like that everyone is so different…I’m fascinated by the differences in people.” 

As an artist of color, Chatterjee finds that her portraiture helps represent community members who have not been historically depicted in established arts institutions. 

“I really want to make artwork of people that you might not see, or might not have seen in a museum maybe hundreds of years ago. I paint a lot of Black people, I do paint a lot of women.”

Currently, Chatterjee works as a type of artist. The problem is that it’s just not the type of art she wants to be doing. 

“I’ve been trying to get inspired again,” she said, amongst other barriers to creating what she’d like. “Last year, I got really burnt out and other stuff came up. Other times it’s been trying to figure out what exactly it is I want to communicate or what theme I want to focus on.” 

Chatterjee works for a company that takes prints of other, more established or well-known artists, and “dresses them up” by adding embellishments like gold leaf or paint strokes to give them a handcrafted effect. 

“Technically, I am doing art full time, but not my art. I still haven’t gotten to that point. I’m still pretty much working using my abilities for someone else. Even if I am being paid for it,” she said.

Chatterjee loves public art, because it “informs people of the space they’re in, or people can use it for connection.” Even though she knows she wants to improve her technique, she sees making public art as “more useful than making some crappy print in a warehouse that some business is purchasing.” 

She also likes to make zines, art books, or character designs. “It’s the energy and time and attention it would take and being in survival mode,” she said, that gets in the way.

Chatterjee’s experience also highlights the contradiction between trying to survive in contemporary society and being creative. She noticed, however, that conversations surrounding racial equity in America, pointed people toward accepting more Black artists to their calls. 

“It did seem to shift, right as spring-summer 2020 happened,” she said. “Suddenly, everybody wanted Black artists, and everybody wanted to hire you. Most of the people I talked to said they made more money than they’ve ever made,” she said. But since then, things have started to slow back down to a crawl. Her observation was that the same few artists who have several opportunities at their disposal kept getting accepted for public art calls. 

Artspace in Raleigh, Chatterjee said, is a space that has not treated the social upheaval that came with the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic as a trend. However, she said that the cities of Durham and Raleigh have gone “back to regular programming where they just want experienced people.” 

Chatterjee is one of many artists that is struggling to figure out what institutions are looking for. She guesses maybe “they’re looking for somebody that cranks things out.” 

In 2020, Chatterjee painted a mural, “African American Trailblazers,” on the side panel of a restaurant in Chapel Hill. 

“I had to paint like a dozen people on it, and I felt like that project – not that I would be entitled to have other projects – but it felt like it should’ve made me more eligible to get my foot in the door with bigger things,” she said. “But what I ran into is I would still be told, ‘we don’t quite trust your experience, we’ve given this opportunity to someone more experienced.’” 

How institutions expect working people to make a living while also developing and nursing their craft is another mystery worth being uncovered. 

“I sent an application, and they rejected me and I asked why…I was told that I had more range than depth. I didn’t know what that meant, and they explained that they want to see a lot of work that’s sort of following a theme,” she explained.

“There are things that, when you apply to these artist calls and things, they always want whatever your pitch is to be like, ‘is this something that will make people have a conversation? Is this something that’s sort of relevant to the environment?’ That stuff is deeply important; we should all care, but also, what if I’m inspired by something that has nothing to do with that? Where does that leave me?”

Because art is so nebulous and hard to pin down, it’s easier to make a living in certain skilled trades than others, like tattooing or cooking; but for young visual artists, even with degrees and experiences, they are still feeling blocked out. 2020 came and went, but the conversation has not ended. Finding fulfillment from art and straight-up survival is a delicate balance that brings to the forefront the battle between art as commodity and art as self-expression. 

Ri’Aasa Toppin, or rarebabespacecraft on Instagram, doesn’t care what other people think about her art. The full-time mother of two (under five years old), wire wrapper, fashion designer, hair stylist, model, wood burner, painter, teacher and doula creates to empower herself and others. During the pandemic, she got an online certification for “therapeutic art life coaching.” She says the best title for her would be “healing artist.”

Toppin moves back and forth between Maryland and North Carolina, making ends meet through booking clients for any of her multiple services. She also teaches wire wrapping to others. However, her circumstances changed earlier this year, making her housing insecure. 

“My life is in shambles, bruh,” she said. Despite this, she still has the highest of spirits, and is looking for a full-time job in hospitality, hoping to have time to still attend artist and craft markets at night. Finding a job with a big gap in her resume has been tough since she’s been an artist and stay-at-home mom since 2018 when she left retail. 

“Being a mom doesn’t matter, COVID happening doesn’t matter, because moms were still working during COVID,” she said. “It’s soul-crushing.”

In a perfect world, Toppin says we’d all be trading and bartering. 

“Please give me this thing, I promise I’ll do something cool with it!” She said. “I wish everyone could love their job. It’s disheartening participating in capitalism even though I’m against it.” 

Toppin also says she has a strong support system of cousins and siblings, which is worthwhile to a single mother like her. But she also says they’re “fed up” with her because they want her to focus on a single enterprise or medium.

“If I was more consistent, I could make it work,” she said. “But I’m like, I need multiple streams of income.” 

Toppin describes her wire wraps as “dainty and strong,” seemingly an oxymoron. How can something be both dainty and strong at the same time?

“It has to be,” she says. Smaller wire reinforces the strength of the thicker wire and helps keep the crystals in place. Toppin started wire-wrapping crystals after an encounter with a man in Union Square Park who made a wire wrap necklace for her out of four crystals she chose. 

Toppin describes her creative process as “gracefully vomiting” – based on a compliment someone gave her after puking in the grass after a party. As a way of processing negativity, she calls it “transmuting,” or “painting with pain.”

There isn’t a particular name for the spirituality that Toppin practices. Many different cultures throughout human existence have used crystals for their metaphysical properties. This is a key part of Toppin’s work. 

“I don’t call myself a healer,” she said. “You have to heal yourself.” 

Toppin is optimistic about her future and survival, continuing to book hair appointments and vending at craft markets and music venues. 

“It’s not impossible. I know I have the power,” she said. “I believe in mind over matter.”