I think it depends on how you choose to make art part of your life. Art can absolutely be a hobby. I’ve met people who paint on weekends because their main focus is somewhere else, just like I’ve met hobby programmers or people who create things from wood as a hobby.
For me personally, art is not a hobby anymore. It’s my main work, something I dedicate most of my time to, and something I have to live from and pay my bills with.
So I don’t think the question is whether art itself is a hobby. It’s about why you create, how much of your life you dedicate to it, and what role you choose for art to have in your life
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By ‘hobby’, I mean a pastime.
Nobody creates art just to pass the time.
Even those who create art at the weekends don’t do it as a hobby, but because it’s a passion they simply can’t do without.
Art as a hobby is fine, but ancestral life wasn’t about abstract leisure. Making useful things—shelters, tools, tools for hunting—was survival. If your art doesn’t serve function, it’s just modern distraction.
The establishment doesn’t fear your weekend hobby, whether it’s code or canvas. They fear the integrated consciousness that refuses to compartmentalize existence under the gaze of corporate mediocrity. The cage is only real if you accept its dimensions.
