Constructing a Social Reality of Luck in the Art World

The Social Value of Art in Cultural Policy

Artists and the arts are widely acknowledged as contributing to social value in community; yet, measuring and evidencing the subjective and experiential nature of the social value of art remains a key challenge within cultural policy, the political economy of government investment in the arts, and research in the creative and cultural industries (Banks, 2010; Belfiore and Bennett, 2007; Carnwath and Brown, 2014; Crossick and Kaszynska, 2016; Gerber, 2017; Lena, 2017). Under neoliberal policy paradigms and limited public arts funding, artists and arts organisations face rising pressure to not only demonstrate their ‘value’ to society but become more entrepreneurial (Harvie, 2013, 2015; Johanson and Glow, 2015; McRobbie, 2016; Meyrick et al., 2019; O’Connor, 2010; Walmsley, 2013). These pressures exacerbate existing challenges of creative work, which is widely described as structurally precarious, competitive, unequal and exploitative (Brook et al., 2020; Gill and Pratt, 2008; Kalleberg, 2018; McRobbie, 2011; Menger, 1999).

Within cultural sociology, these complex and multi-faceted social, political, and structural aspects of the art world and creative work complicate the analysis of social value in the arts. In particular, because the arts hold different meanings and values across diverse contexts and stakeholders – such as policymakers, funders, arts organisations, art world operators, artists/companies, audiences, and the public – there is a need for greater understanding of their varied perspectives, and the ways in which social factors and inequalities can shape these perspectives (Banks, 2019; Bonham-Carter and Mann, 2017; Fitzgibbon, 2022; Lena, 2017). Existing research highlights a persistent oversight: artists – their lived experiences and voices – are rarely given attention as core stakeholders in cultural policy and funding debates. Scholars call for qualitative, narrative-based frameworks that better reflect the complexities of social value across diverse contexts and, crucially, account for the why and how it is experienced by individuals (Banks and Hesmondhalgh, 2009; Comunian, 2017; Comunian and Conor, 2017; Conor et al., 2015; Glow and Caust, 2010; Johanson and Glow, 2019; Kaszynska, 2015; Meyrick and Barnett, 2015; Walmsley, 2011, 2016).

In response, our broader research study aims to examine social value within a socially engaged performance in a festival context, and begins with the open question: How do artists understand and experience the social value of art? Given the noted challenges examining social value in art, we employed an inductive design to generate theory from emergent data. Interviews explored artists’ perceptions of social value and their broader experiences within the art world. However, what initially seemed like offhand, or perfunctory mentions of luck during the interviews, emerged more clearly as an unexpected cluster of interconnected themes centred on the concept of luck. This surprising pattern redirected our focus and led to the central research question of this article: How do artists ‘use’ expressions of luck, and what social values does this reveal about the art world? Further analysis revealed that the artists express a sense of being ‘lucky’ to describe the economic, social and pleasurable aspects of their work and lifestyle.

Constructing Luck

Expressions of being lucky are common in everyday conversation. Yet, luck is an intangible and elusive concept – with similar epistemological challenges to understanding the social value of art. Often used retrospectively to make sense of past events and their outcomes, luck appears as an external force that is socially accepted as tangible and ‘real’. Bertinetto defines an event or experience as ‘lucky’ if it is rare, unexpected, unpredictable and beyond control, and perceived as ‘remarkably valuable’ (Bertinetto, 2013: 122, emphasis added). Because luck involves the perception of what is of remarkable value, it is subjective, personally meaningful, relational and value laden. Claiming to be lucky is therefore not a neutral act – it signals underlying values. This insight forms the starting point for our initial conceptual reading of luck as a socially constructed and value-laden phenomenon.

To understand how artists employ luck and what it ‘does’ socially, we draw on Becker’s (1982) concept and understanding of ‘art worlds’, and Berger and Luckmann’s (1966) theory of the Social Construction of Reality (SCR) which explains how knowledge becomes accepted as reality through social interaction in everyday life. As Sauder (2020) argues, although historically overlooked in sociology, exploring how, when, and why individuals and groups invoke luck can reveal how they construct their own social realities. In examining how artists use luck as part of a social construction within the art world, this article addresses a key gap in literature on social value in the arts, by prioritising artists’ lived experiences and understandings of social value. While focusing on a particular Tasmanian ecology, this article offers nuanced insights into how the language of luck, though contextually deployed, operates widely across the art world. This article aims to contribute to the field of cultural sociology by bridging the conception of luck with art worlds and the social value of art.

In line with the study’s inductive design, the article proceeds as follows: first, we outline our qualitative methodology and participants; next, we present emergent findings interwoven with analysis, drawing on literature on luck’s social role, and its relation to artistic identity, work and lifestyle, alongside foundational theories on social reality and art worlds. We conclude by offering insights into the artists’ lived experiences and tacit understandings of social value in the art world and highlighting how the language of luck operates as a taken-for-granted discursive tool for value creation and identity construction, shaping a social reality of luck.

Research Design and Data Collection

This article primarily draws on the qualitative analysis of 24 in-depth interviews conducted over a four-month period with an ensemble of artists developing a performance at MONA FOMA 2020 (MOFO) – Museum of Old and New Art’s Festival of Music and Art – held in Launceston, Tasmania, Australia in January 2020 (before COVID-19 border closures). Rather than a broad demographic approach, this study purposefully recruited participants embedded in a specific social, cultural, and experiential context: the creation of a community-engaged performance at an arts festival – recognised for nurturing social formations, sociability and social values (Bishop, 2006; Bourriaud, 2002; Jackson, 2011; Quinn, 2010; Wilks, 2011). The research site was selected because of the unique convergence of the festival’s relocation to Launceston, its strategic focus on community engagement, and the performance’s significance as the first self-produced and largest site-specific work presented. The performance’s scale made it feasible to recruit all study participants and ensured a shared thematic focus across interviews.

Festival organisers and the performance’s lead artistic company were initially invited by email to participate in the study. Artists were subsequently invited through direct contact; 24 participants agreed and were interviewed. All participants provided written informed consent to conduct and publish the study and be identified by the Tasmanian Social Sciences Human Research Ethics Committee. As findings emerged from the data rather than a specific topic of discussion, pseudonyms are used and identifying characteristics removed. Interviews were conducted by the lead researcher, who is an arts practitioner, and who had prior professional connections with 22 of the 24 participants. This familiarity was incidental and reflects the relatively small art community. As a result, the interviews drew on shared experiences and mutual understandings. To address the positionality of the lead researcher, we employed critical reflexivity in the interviews, and in analysis and interpretation – to maintain the validity of the data, findings, and analysis – including identifying like-minded views on the value of the arts, shared sympathies, assumptions and tacit knowledge, and insider lingo. Alongside these recordings, the interviewer also took contextual notes which included tacit facial expressions and gestures (Lincoln and Guba, 1985) and drew on contextual grey literature on Australian cultural policy and arts funding. As part of the broader study’s research, design also included 26 short semi-structured interviews with audience members before the performances to examine their motivations for attending, and over 50 hours of ethnographic field observations of the relational interactions between artists, participants and audiences at rehearsals and the festival.

Interviews and Data

Semi-structured interviews were employed to capture emergent concepts and ‘thick descriptions’ of the artists’ perceptions, motivations, lived experiences, and importantly, how they experience and make sense of the social value of art (Charmaz, 2006; Geertz, 1973; Glaser and Strauss, 2017; Newsinger and Green, 2016). Interviews were conducted in person and lasted approximately one hour. Questions were purposefully open-ended, structured around three broad topic areas. The first topic explored their practice, motivations for participating in the performance, and their perceptions and experiences of the show they were creating, the festival, and in the arts generally. The second topic focused on social value and what it meant to them, in the performance, at the festival, and in society. The third topic focused on perceptions of Australian cultural policy and arts funding, and on metrics of evaluation. Participants were not asked about demographic characteristics, work situation and history, funding outcomes, or views on precarious creative work. In describing their practices, the participants revealed that the group was varied in working location (local and national), career stage (emerging to experienced), reputation (unfamiliar to recognised), and gender (identifying as 15 women and nine men). While operating primarily within the performing arts, the group represented various artistic disciplines including theatre, physical theatre, dance, music, as well as visual, sound and multi-media, community, and socially engaged arts. Importantly, participants self-identified as ‘artists’, and so we use the term to refer them, aware that this umbrella category obscures unique disciplinary qualities (Abbing, 2002; Childress and Gerber, 2015; Jackson, 2011).

Data Analysis and Emergent Themes

Gratitude and luck emerged inductively during fieldwork, initially in the interviewer’s field observations of interactions and contextual notes from early interviews of what seemed to be casual mentions of luck. At this point, it was not clear that luck was emergent. However, following several interviews, it became evident that luck was emergent, appearing numerous times across numerous interviews. We note that we did not directly address the concept of luck when it was raised in the interviews, as we did not want to bias the data or validity of the findings. As such, we chose not to alter the interview questions to account for luck and instead let it emerge naturally and interrogate the language of luck in analysis. Importantly, to be asked directly why one considers themselves lucky is not a neutral question – rather, it demands self-reflection of emotions that are dependent on social contexts, and that can be influenced by social expectations (McKenzie, 2016). This is very different to how someone casually talks of luck in everyday conversation, which is the focus of this article. As our ethnographic field observations were not recorded or transcribed, they fell beyond the methodological scope of this article, focused on examining the language of luck.

Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim for analysis, which was conducted using NVivo. An inductive and iterative approach to data analysis, informed by grounded theory, offered flexibility for exploration, enabling interpretations and theoretical insights to be drawn from emergent data, allowing emergent data to guide the research in new directions (Charmaz, 2006; Glaser and Strauss, 2017). The initial phase involved repeated close readings to identify explicit and unanticipated and emergent themes, concepts and relational patterns. Despite participants not being asked about luck, analysis revealed a cluster of emergent themes and patterns centred around this term. Curious, we explored why the artists say they are lucky, which led to the article’s main research question. Focused phases of analysis surrounding the concept of luck and associated concepts involved constant comparisons between new and earlier data, codes, themes and interpretations, which generated new ones (Charmaz, 2006; Denscombe, 2010; Glaser and Strauss, 2017; Saldaña, 2013). Further analysis and memo writing linking ideas and relationships revealed overlapping and diverse narratives of being lucky in different contexts related to artistic work and lifestyle, and an underlying taken-for-granted-ness linked to broader cultural narratives about what it means to be an artist. This opened new areas of literature and guided our research that links luck and the artist lifestyle, work and identity, which are interwoven into the findings and analysis. Next, we present our emergent findings and analysis of the artists’ discursive use of luck in conversation.

The ‘Best Thing Ever’ – Lucky to be Paid

The first key theme to emerge from the data centres on artists’ expressions of luck to frame the economic dimensions of their work. Peter, a nationally recognised stage performer and artistic director of a theatre company, reflecting on his career, discusses touring:

I was born and bred in Hobart. I’ve moved away for one or two years at a time in different cities on the mainland because of work, I’ve worked on some BIG [shows] that have taken me away for 24 months, 18 months. I’M the lucky one, one of the lucky ones to live in Tasmania that whole time and do that. (Peter)

Peter situates his sense of luck within the context and being an artist based in Tasmania – Australia’s small island state. Implicit in his statement are two key points. First, he acknowledges structural challenges Tasmanian artists face due to its island geography and small population, disconnected from the art world’s urban-centred networks. He elaborates: ‘The opportunities in Tasmania are very few and far between. A lot more of this stuff is going on on the mainland. We just don’t have the population to demand it and sustain it’ (Peter). As a result, many Tasmanian artists – particularly in the performing arts – leave the state to seek work on the ‘mainland’ to ‘make it’. ¹ Peter considers himself lucky because he was able to remain based in Tasmania while employed to tour nationally. Second, this also points to a tacit understanding within the arts industry – long-term touring contracts equate to financial security and in an industry where stable income is elusive, they are a highly coveted rarity. Indeed, Throsby and Petetskaya’s (2024) industry survey found that in 2021–2022, the gross annual income from creative work for a practising Australian theatre actor/director was $37,100 AUD (£18,312). ² Thus, Peter’s experience of sustained touring work becomes a marker of both artistic and economic success.

Like Peter, artists describe themselves as ‘lucky’ to be able to work as practising artists. Steven, a sound and media artist, reflects:

I guess I’m lucky now to be able to do this as a full-time job. Which I’ve only done the last few years. Because it’s important to me, the stuff I do, and you just sort of, you’d be finding a way to do it anyway. So, when you can find a way to get paid to do it, that’s like the BEST THING EVER [laughing]. (Steven)

Steven is lucky to work full-time as an artist. His emphasis – ‘the BEST THING EVER’ – captures a recurring sentiment – being paid is not expected but celebrated. Karl, a seasoned musician, echoes this with humour: ‘I’ve always been doing weird shit [world music] all the time anyway. The difference is now I’m being PAID for it [laughing], which is A BIG THING’ (Karl). Helena and Lisa, emerging theatre performers, and Jane, an emerging theatre and physical theatre performer, also express their fortune working on the performance:

How lucky is it that we get a. . . professional, you know, PAID job . . .? (Helena)

I think we were all pretty happy to have work. . . which is really great. I didn’t really expect it. (Lisa)

It’s GREAT to have paid work. . . AND it’s great because [it’s] physical theatre, so it’s really a win-win. (Jane)

These statements show the artists consistently describe themselves as lucky to receive paid work, framing it as a privilege, not an entitlement. Here, when the artists say they are lucky to be paid, ‘luck’ is used to show gratitude or modesty and establishes that the artists operate under different expectations of work to most other professions. Would an accountant describe being paid as ‘the best thing ever’? Likely not. What luck is revealing here is that unlike most professions, where payment is assumed in exchange for labour, artists often feel compelled to justify or express gratitude and modesty for being compensated within a highly competitive and uncertain work environment – even if only describing one ‘gig’. Steven quickly and modestly qualifies his full-time work as a recent development – of ‘the last few years’ – and later elaborates on a recent project:

Absolutely. For the show I didn’t get any money. I thought I’d use it as an opportunity. I always end up subsidising my own shows, certainly in terms of hours, but also in terms of paying for stuff. Only in the last few years I’ve actually started paying myself. (Steven)

Steven makes clear that he has previously faced challenges securing income. Jane describes paid work in her primary artistic field of practice as ‘win-win’, underscoring the shortage of such opportunities.

A term frequently used by the artists to imply luck and gratitude in connection to the economics of their labour is ‘opportunity’. For many, gigs are not just jobs – they are rare chances for meaningful artistic and personal life experiences, as Helena explains: ‘It was very lucky, well, just to participate in the show. For me, I mean simply it’s a job, but it’s more than that. It’s a great opportunity’ (Helena). Notably, many artists talk of participating in the festival and performance (under investigation), as ‘opportunities’ they couldn’t pass. Carolyn, a young theatre performer, Samantha, a musician and craft artist, and Taylor, a theatre performer, explain:

I’ve been doing [theatre] my whole life and any opportunity to do something new and different and work with different people is only going to strengthen myself, just a great experience. (Taylor)

I think it’s really cool and super rewarding and like we’re [the artists] really appreciative, appreciative that we get the opportunity. It’s a really amazing experience that we’re all super grateful for. (Carolyn)

It’s [my] opportunity to be involved in this festival [. . .] in a world premiere, and something never seen. It’ll be really exciting. I have the time free, so yeah. (Samantha)

On the surface, these artists express luck and gratitude for their ‘opportunities’. But what does ‘opportunity’ really mean in this context? Etymologically linked to luck through ‘chance’, it means possibility, not certainty – commonly understood as the possibility of work or promotion (Oxford English Dictionary, 2023a) – as in ‘a chance of success’ or ‘a chance of employment’. An ‘opportunity’ is not synonymous with a ‘job’. Yet, the artists express gratitude and happiness for existing paid employment, framing gigs as opportunities that are ‘more than’ simply a job, as Helena notes. The findings suggest that for the artists, ‘opportunity’ also connotes access, agency and choice – suggesting they are lucky for an additional privilege beyond the possibility of work.

Our analysis of the artists’ expressions of luck – including gratitude, happiness, and opportunity – draws on Berger and Luckmann’s (1966) Social Construction of Reality (SCR), which argues that knowledge and meaning are not objective truths but created through language, shared interpretations and everyday interactions that create a ‘social reality’ accepted and taken-for-granted as ‘real’. Tacit knowledge (Polanyi, 1958), learned through experience, observation, socialisation and sense-making plays a key role in this process. This social reality is both shaped by, and shapes how individuals and groups perceive the world, reproduce knowledge and construct social identities, and highlights the interplay between individual perception and societal structures (Berger and Luckmann, 1966; Goffman, 1956). This thinking is fundamental to Becker’s (1982) ‘art worlds’ – where he establishes that the art world, art and artistic identity are co-produced through social networks and interactions, and through shared narratives and cultural conventions. In the art world, tacit knowledge is central not only to developing artistic expertise but also to shaping identity, through learning codes for entrepreneurial skills, managing a freelance career, discussing art, building relationships, and presenting oneself in line with structural and social expectations (Banks, 2010; Becker, 1982; Bourdieu, 1984; Childress and Gerber, 2015; Gerber, 2017). We adopt this framework in our analysis.

We interpret artists’ expressions not as emotional responses but as social acts that reflect shared meanings, taken-for-granted-ness, tacit-ness, and cultural narratives of what it means to be an artist. Central to these narratives is the art world’s authority to confer legitimacy on both art and the individual as ‘artist’, shaped by peer recognition, public promotion, and expectations of sustained practice, personal sacrifice, and economic ‘disinterestedness’. These norms underpin the construction of artistic identity and value, sustaining social status and distinction from everyday life. We argue that this framing shapes how artists perceive and perform their value, which they construct and sustain through a socially constructed reality of luck (Sauder, 2020).

Expressions of luck, gratitude, or happiness for payment or ‘opportunities’ signal a shared understanding that work is fortunate, and payment is exceptional, not expected. We suggest this reflects structural conditions in the arts industry, where such ‘opportunities’ are economic necessities for many artists. Artistic labour remains precarious – marked by risk, competition, inequality, and exploitation – and characterised by irregular project work, low wages, informal labour markets, casualisation, and an oversupply of aspiring artists (Boltanski and Chiapello, 2007; Brook et al., 2020; Gill and Pratt, 2008; Kalleberg, 2018; McRobbie, 2011, 2016; Menger, 1999). Menger (1999) conceptualises that artists rely on both monetary income and psychic income – the non-monetary social rewards they receive in exchange for their labour – which emphasises social values over purely economic considerations in precarious creative work.

The very definition of ‘precarious’ – as something that is ‘uncertain’ or ‘dependent on chance’ (Oxford English Dictionary, 2023b) – resonates with our understanding of luck. Within this context, the ‘top 1%’ of artists – the lucky ones – achieve success and stardom through luck, chance, and cumulative advantage (Adler, 1985; Rojek, 2001). ³ Samantha frustratingly observes that artists ‘have NEVER earned a lot of money off the arts, unless they’re in that top 1%’, noting these elite outliers are often misrepresented as typical of all artists, and their lifestyle conflated with capitalist monetary success. For Samantha, this obscures the disparity and reality of the 99% of ‘ordinary artists’ – the unlucky ones – who remain under-recognised and economically and socially vulnerable (Bataille et al., 2020; Perrenoud and Bois, 2017). Moreover, ‘opportunity’ itself is precarious – demanding risk, sacrifice, and strategic self-positioning. As Harvie (2013: 82) argues, it has become shorthand for a neoliberal promise of self-realisation and social mobility through the idealised ‘enterprising self’. To succeed, the bohemian ‘ordinary artists’ must also become ‘artrepreneurs’, playing the neoliberal game, while navigating a competitive and unstable industry (Boltanski and Chiapello, 2007; Gerber and Childress, 2017b; Harvie, 2013; McRobbie, 2016; Ooi and Comunian, 2018). Creative workers employ psychic and social strategies to navigate precarity by engaging in discourses of luck, hope and opportunity to justify their persistence in their careers (Alacovska, 2019; Hesmondhalgh and Baker, 2010; Kuehn and Corrigan, 2013; Lindström, 2017; Luckman and Taylor, 2024). This SCR reinforces the symbolic value of ‘luck’, ‘gratitude’ and ‘opportunity’ to positively frame their work, obscuring the structural inequalities that shape them.

Our analysis of the lead researcher’s contextual notes alongside the transcripts shows the artists’ expressions of luck and gratitude are often delivered with exaggerated tone, volume, or laughter. These discursive cues reflect artists’ awareness, and tacit acceptance, of the absurdity of valuing labour that is rarely fairly paid. Rather than self-delusion, this instead reflects a SCR in which precarity is normalised and financial compensation for skilled artistic labour is treated as exceptional (Abbing, 2002; Alacovska and Bille, 2021; Brook et al., 2020; Harvie, 2013; Luckman and Taylor, 2024). This narrative taps into the persistent stereotype of the ‘starving artist’, reinforcing the idea that artists choose economic instability in exchange for fulfilling work and lifestyle.

Lucky To Be Happy, Free and Fulfilled – Happiness as a Reward

Within the context of the instability and uncertainty of creative work, one of the most consistent and explicit expressions to emerge from the artists interviewed is their luck and gratitude for the happiness and emotional fulfilment they derive from their work. Responding to a broad question about the influence of the arts on her personally, Carol, a theatre company director and producer, reflects:

It’s exciting to create stuff. It’s good to see the finished result on the stages, it’s good to lurk up the back of the theatre and see lots of people in the theatre enjoying it. And you walk out and go, ‘It was worth it’. Yeah, I can die happy now. [Laughing] Poor but happy [Laughing]. It’s very fulfilling, very satisfying. (Carol)

For Carol, the value of her artistic labour is framed relationally – her fulfilment and happiness are derived from the audience’s enjoyment of her work – which affirms her sense that ‘it was worth it’. Yet, Carol’s laughter and the phrase ‘poor but happy’ simultaneously acknowledge the economic precarity of her profession. This juxtaposition of fulfilment and financial instability encapsulates a tension – happiness is framed as compensation for material insecurity. This sentiment is echoed in the way Rhona, a community artist and performer, reflects on why she makes art:

That’s what you do for life [. . .] Well, it’s like, Why? Why are you doing it in the first place? Is it because its inherent within you? And sharing that? Or is it about making a living? You KNOW that that’s what makes you feel good. (Rhona)

Steven similarly reflects on the importance of art in his life. After a long pause, he says:

I mean, I guess I’m lucky [. . .] I go to my studio every day. I’m just doing what I want to do. I know when I think about that it makes me happy. I don’t really think about being happy, but that’s great. I’m pretty lucky to have fallen into that. (Steven)

Steven’s reflection exemplifies how artists often use ‘luck’ to express appreciation for the freedom their creative lives afford. His happiness is not framed in terms of financial gain, but in the ability to ‘do what I want to do’. This valuing of his freedom – to pursue his desires on his own terms – is central to his sense of fulfilment and, by extension, his perceived luck and happiness.

These narratives reflect a shared cultural understanding of the artist as someone whose vocation is seen as a calling (Gerber, 2017) – deeply meaningful and often idealised as ‘living the dream’. This ‘dream’ is loosely defined as a life of creative fulfilment, success and freedom of choice, and often imagined to include travel, status, comforts, and professional and financial autonomy. As Boltanski and Chiapello (2007: 109) point out, this ideal is tied to an ‘inspirational status’, generating cultural and social capital (Abbing, 2002, 2011; Bourdieu, 1984; Velthuis, 2007). For the artists in this study, however, this ‘dream’ is twofold – being paid for their work, as discussed in Section 1 of this article, and doing what they love, as explored in this section. This duality contributes to a sense of luck and happiness.

Ahmed (2004, 2010) offers a useful lens to examine the social construction of luck through her study of happiness. She reasons the etymological link between luck, chance, fortune and happiness – all derived from the Middle English root ‘hap’ – suggests that to be happy is to be fortunate, and to be fortunate is to be lucky (Ahmed, 2010: 5). In this way, happiness affirms that one possesses something desirable, and that one is therefore lucky. The artists’ expressions of luck embody this logic. Steven’s happiness stems from doing what he desires, which he interprets as luck. Carol, too, finds fulfilment in her work, even if it leaves her ‘poor’. For her, happiness is the reward, and that reward is ’worth it’. This strategic framing allows artists to assert the inherent value of their work and lifestyle within the context of precarious work – even in the absence of economic capital or financial stability (Boltanski and Chiapello, 2007; Menger, 1999; Patulny et al., 2020). For artists, happiness is not merely emotional – it serves as a marker of value and a social signal that they possess something desirable: meaningful and fulfilling work.

Our analysis of the artists’ expressions – particularly happiness – considers how meaning and knowledge are socially produced through language and interaction (Berger and Luckmann, 1966). Like luck, happiness is not a neutral emotion – it reflects broader social expectations, power structures and moral economies. Furthermore, under neoliberalism, happiness and luck have been commodified and reframed as personal achievements – things to be earned or possessed (Ahmed, 2004, 2010; McKenzie, 2016). This framing aligns with ideals of freedom, autonomy, and individualisation, echoed in mantras like ‘create your own happiness’ and ‘make your own luck’ which support a myth of meritocracy (Frank, 2016; Harvie, 2013; Littler, 2018). When artists describe themselves as happy and lucky, they reproduce a social reality in which success is imagined as self-made and pleasurable – an ideal valorised by the rise of the creative class and its association with cultural capital, mobility and project-based work – despite the contradictions (Abbing, 2011; Florida, 2003; Landry and Bianchini, 1995; O’Connor, 2010; Patulny et al., 2020). Such expressions also serve as psychic strategies to reframe their freelance and portfolio work as validating their authenticity and reputation (Stokes, 2021).

This sense of happiness and fulfilment is also tied to how artists describe their ‘style of work’ (Giddens, 1991: 81) – not just what they do, but how they live. For many, the boundary between work and leisure and pleasure is blurred. Jeff, an actor and artistic director of a theatre company, makes implicit links between luck, identity, work, leisure and lifestyle, when he explains how the arts are important to him:

Like, largely everything that I do is based around the arts – I make theatre, I teach theatre and technical theatre, and direct musicals and run a theatre company, and that’s a lot of what I do, and how I choose to spend a lot of my free time and it’s also my professional life. So, I’m really lucky in that sense. (Jeff)

Jeff loves what he does, and he portrays a lifestyle where ‘work’ and ‘leisure’ are indistinguishable, and this indistinction is framed as a form of luck – common across a number of interviews. Carolyn, in enthusiastically describing her love of theatre, lists seven theatre companies she has worked with recently. Similarly, Samantha lists various activities: ‘Yeah, I’m happy. I’m involved in music, I play flute, I’m involved in festivals, I lead [choir] music, I make things. . . glassblowing and all sorts of stuff’ (Samantha). As research confirms, artists’ emotional wellbeing is closely tied to their art, work, and to their sense of identity (Bain, 2005; Gill and Pratt, 2008; McRobbie, 2016). The artists express luck and gratitude for a way of life where art is fused with work, leisure activities, pleasurable hobbies and cultural consumption, elevating their lifestyle as valuable and a source of happiness that is inseparable from their identity and self-worth.

Language plays a critical role in constructing social reality and defining value. Jackson (2011: 76) however, cautions that language also redefines and de-defines value – through homogenisation – or the collapsing of distinctions. Using the analogy of a once desired object becoming ‘garbage’, Jackson highlights how this process of collapsing strips the object of its original distinguishing qualities value, leading to its blurred designation and devaluation. This raises the question: What does the artists’ ambiguity between ‘work’ and ‘leisure’ do? This indistinction is not incidental – but central to how artists construct their identity and derive fulfilment – reflecting what Giddens (1991) calls the ‘reflexive project of the self’, where both personal narrative and lifestyle choices are active modes of identity construction. This blurring reinforces a powerful and socially distinct artistic identity and lifestyle – where artists ‘live and breathe’ art, as Samantha puts it. It positions both work and leisure as equally meaningful and valuable, reframing ‘leisure’ as productive, and ‘work’ as pleasurable, challenging conventional distinctions that define work as productive and leisure as non-productive. Freedom and leisure are no longer just conditions of creative work but have become symbolic commodities and markers of success and lifestyle consumption under neoliberalism, deepening a cultural imaginary of the artist’s lifestyle as symbolically desirable (Bourdieu, 1984; Giddens, 1991; Harvie, 2013; Simmel, 2004; Veblen, 2009; Weber, 1978).

At the same time, this blurring of boundaries – between paid and unpaid labour, professional and amateur roles, formal and informal work, and even notions of ‘quality’ art – obscures categories that shape how both art and artistic labour are discussed, judged, legitimated and valued in both the art world and broader society (Alacovska, 2022; Brook et al., 2020; Childress and Gerber, 2015; Gerber, 2017; Kaprow, 1995; Lena, 2017). ⁴ Such ambiguity reinforces perceptions of artistic authenticity, which artists may use to shield their work from external judgements about legitimacy or worth. Yet this creates a paradox – the more fulfilling, pleasurable and ‘authentic’ the artistic lifestyle appears, the less it is recognised as legitimate labour. In contexts of unpaid or underpaid labour, and informal and voluntary work, structural inequalities, and romanticised notions of creative life, this lack of recognition contributes to the cultural devaluation of artistic labour, complicates advocacy for fair compensation, and obscures the economic and emotional costs borne by artists (Banks, 2006; Gill, 2010; Lindström, 2017; McRobbie, 2011; Patulny et al., 2020).

In contrast to Section 1 – where happiness is tied to paid employment – this section links happiness to the satisfaction of being an artist, regardless of income. This taps into the enduring stereotype of the ‘starving artist’ who creates art for love, not money – a narrative that continues to shape how society and artists reconcile creative labour with economic precarity, reinforced by the art world’s mechanisms of legitimation. Research shows that artists reject this stereotype, yet cultural narratives about ‘lifestyle choice’ and ‘work preference’ continue – implying that artists consciously prioritise passion over profit, framing their lack of wealth as a lack of concern for wealth (Abbing, 2002; Alacovska and Bille, 2021; Bourdieu, 1993; Florida, 2003; Gerber, 2017; Threadgold, 2018; Throsby, 1994; Velthuis, 2007). Taylor illustrates this point describing several artists working on the performance, remarking: ‘You know, they’re eating two-minute noodles for dinner every night and can’t afford petrol and stuff like this, to do art’ (Taylor). In this context, artistic labour becomes its own reward, and precarity is reframed as personal privilege.

Bain (2005) notes that artists often act to preserve their symbolic status and marginality. Despite being interviewed during a paid engagement at an international festival, a relatively privileged position – notably, participants do not use luck, gratitude, happiness, or opportunity to describe their success with a paid gig in terms of deservedness, or financial return of their labour (cf. Gerber, 2017). Instead, they express gratitude and modesty. This reinforces a cultural narrative that emphasises meaning, fulfilment, and lifestyle over monetary compensation as the artist’s true ‘wage’ (Bourdieu, 1993; Menger, 1999). This social reality of symbolic capital is experienced as a source of happiness, and thus, luck. It is also closely tied to the social and pleasurable dimensions of creative work, which further complicates how artistic labour is valued.

Being an Artist is Fun and Cool – Perks of Being an Artist

A third and recurring pattern in the findings is how the artists express luck not only for the work itself, but for the pleasure, enjoyment and status it affords – their lifestyle satisfaction – or the perks of being an artist. Many describe their work as social, fun, entertaining and ultimately pleasurable – experiences they feel fortunate to have. Aimee, a musician, reflects on her lifestyle touring festivals:

I kind of ended up in this sort of life where I get to do these fun festivals. . . I have to pinch myself that I have this opportunity. I didn’t plan to be in this life. It’s so fun and it’s so different to my normal life. It’s changed my life. Totally. Completely. I’m a mom, I’ve got kids, you know, my husband and I run a business, just this whole other life. And so, it’s like, I get to kind of dive into this whole other world and meet really interesting people [. . .] It’s definitely, from an artist point of view, the pleasure of the experience. (Aimee)

Aimee’s need to ‘pinch’ herself evokes the feeling of ‘living a dream’, reinforcing her sense of luck, fortune and serendipity. Her emphatic phrasing – ‘It’s changed my life. Totally. Completely’ – signals the transformative value she places on her artistic life, which she contrasts with her ‘normal life’ as a mother and business owner. That she ‘ended up’ in this life suggests an unplanned, fortunate turn of events.

Similarly, in explaining how she came to be involved in the show, Rhona says, ‘the opportunity to work on the show, it’s exciting,’ pointing out, ‘It just sounded like lots of fun’ (Rhona). Carolyn similarly expresses her excitement about participating in the festival:

It’s just such a different feeling to, like, stacking shelves [what she equates to ‘work’]. It’s really fun. It’s really cool. I’ve never been a part of this festival before. Lots of people have been talking about it, and when I tell them [that she’s performing], they’re like, Oh wow, that’s so cool! (Carolyn)

Carolyn’s unmistakeable enthusiasm exposes her happiness and highlights the value she places on the social validation she receives for her artistic work. Her comparison to ‘stacking shelves’ underscores the high value she places on her fun and ‘cool’ festival gig. Steven also casually references a recent ‘work trip’: ‘Like, my last trip to Europe, I was there for a month. . . seeing heaps of shows and meeting people. I mean that was what it was about. I was invited to go over’ (Steven). Though Steven does not explicitly mention luck, his account reflects what many non-artists would consider ‘living the dream’ – international travel, socialising, and leisurely cultural consumption framed as ‘work’. His simple remark – ‘I was invited’ – is also emblematic of how status is communicated through casual discourse. In the art world, such phrases often signal professional status, implying institutional endorsement and recognition, fully covered travel expenses, and access to elite networks (Lena, 2017). When discussing their work, the artists consistently express gratitude, foregrounding the non-monetary rewards (Menger, 1999) of their lifestyle perks of autonomy, pleasure, and status.

Many artists also frame their artistic identity in contrast to conventional employment. Steven, for instance, remarks, ‘I’m lucky because I’ve got a creative family, and I never had the pressure to get a REAL JOB’, that ‘grinds against you and your soul’. In the context of talking of her desire ‘to always be an artist’, Lisa describes a 9–5 office job as something she ‘physically, mentally couldn’t cope with’. Aimee, the musician who enjoys her current lifestyle of fun festivals, reflecting on her previous career, notes, ‘I was really bored by it’. The artists often reject the notion of ‘real work’, distancing themselves from it by expressing feelings of luck and gratitude for not having a ‘real job’. These expressions construct a hierarchy of value in which artists use luck and gratitude to legitimise and ascribe value to their occupation.

In this way, their work and lifestyle are treated as artefacts – meaningful objects – imbued with social value (Ahmed, 2008, 2010; Gerber and Childress, 2017a; Jackson, 2011). This contributes to a cultural imaginary that frames artistic labour as unique, pleasurable and desirable. Crucially, their work is positioned in contrast to non-artistic work – not as a profession, but as a lifestyle. This distinction elevates the artist lifestyle as not only pleasurable, but also morally, culturally, and socially enviable. Such expressions draw on the 19th-century romantic ideal of the artist as inherently unsuited to conventional labour – whose ‘genius’, passion and autonomy justify a life free from material concerns (Abbing, 2002; Becker, 1982; Bourdieu, 1993). By emphasising the perks of their lifestyle and creative work, artists reinforce a socially distinct identity and the perception that they are fortunate to escape the ‘humdrum’ of conventional employment. This framing also reflects how artistic labour has been reimagined and idealised within the neoliberal economy (Bain and McLean, 2013; Florida, 2003; Gerber and Childress, 2017b; Harvie, 2013).

This cultural logic is reinforced through shared norms and narratives within the moral economy of passion work (Banks, 2006; McRobbie, 2016). Artists reflect, reproduce, and sustain these narratives through a stage-managed identity (Goffman, 1956), where references to luck serve as performances of happiness and success. These performances construct a social reality that generates symbolic, cultural, and social capital, even as it obscures the structural precarity and vulnerability that often underpin artistic labour (Abbing, 2002, 2011; Boltanski and Chiapello, 2007). Within this framework, expressions of luck function as social acts of value attribution, legitimising their identity and professional status within the art world, while affirming broader cultural narratives of their symbolic status and the worth of their work and lifestyle as symbolic commodities.

Constructing a Social Reality of Luck in the Art World

This article has explored how artists use the concept of luck to describe their work and lifestyle, addressing the research questions: How do artists ‘use’ expressions of luck, and what social values does this reveal about the art world? Drawing on a case study from an Australian arts festival, we examined how artists’ expressions of luck – and its complex interplay with gratitude, happiness and opportunity – reflect and reproduce tacit cultural narratives in the art world that shape a socially constructed reality of luck. These expressions reveal how luck operates as a discursive tool that spans economic, lifestyle, emotional and identity dimensions of artistic labour.

Our findings show that artists’ use of the word ‘luck’ in conversation generates social value by performing three key cultural functions. First, it obscures the structural precarity of creative labour, contributing to a moral economy where symbolic capital outweighs economic capital. Second, it reframes payment as a bonus and positions meaning and happiness as intrinsic rewards of artistic work. Third, it affirms the symbolic status of the artist and the idealised lifestyle of ‘living the dream’. This tension highlights the contradictions artists navigate in a neoliberal economy where luck and happiness are commodified, and success is framed as self-made. Artists embed irony, laughter and ambivalence into their expressions of luck, signalling awareness, not naivety, of these complex contradictions they inhabit. The discourse of luck thus functions strategically – celebrating non-monetary rewards and a lifestyle wage, while simultaneously normalising precarity. Luck becomes a container for contradiction: artists embrace the freedoms and glamour of creative life, encouraged to have their cake and eat it — even as they tacitly accept unstable working conditions as the norm, shooting themselves in the foot. Though intangible and ambiguous, luck is widely accepted as a ‘real’ and external force, operating as a socially constructed internal and external ‘code’ enabling these contradictions to persist.

Rather than treating luck as an abstract external force, this study conceptualises it as a socially constructed, value-laden expression. Drawing on Berger and Luckmann’s (1966) theory of the Social Construction of Reality, Becker’s (1982) notion of co-produced art worlds, and Ahmed’s (2004, 2010) work on the performative and political nature of emotions, we show that expressions of luck, gratitude, happiness and opportunity are not incidental or emotional, but relational social acts. These acts transform subjective perceptions into an objective cultural narrative embedded in the art world. In doing so, we contribute to Sauder’s (2020) sociology of luck by expanding it to the cultural field of artistic labour, showing how luck is discursively performed and socially constructed within the art world. In this context, luck becomes a mechanism through which artists negotiate symbolic status in a system that often fails to materially support them.

Importantly, the artists in this study do not simply feel lucky – they perform luck. Through this linguistic performance, they valorise their work and lifestyle for its freedom, pleasure and fulfilment, reinforcing the perception that they possess something of exceptional value. This affirmation of luck, happiness and gratitude confirms their privilege of being artists, contributes to their sense of worth, and legitimises their artistic identity. Our study addresses a gap in cultural policy literature by providing a contextual account of artists’ lived experiences, emotions, and meaning-making practices. It contributes to cultural sociology by linking expressions of luck to value construction, showing how artists use the language of luck as a discursive strategy to navigate precarity, construct value, and to negotiate identity. While the findings are specific to an Australian context and a cohort of artists working at a ‘festival gig’, they point to a broader social phenomenon. Future research might explore expressions of luck across artistic disciplines, career stages, among artists not currently working, and in response to direct questions about luck. In terms of our ethnographic observations dataset, there is an opportunity to explore whether the social construction of luck moves beyond the linguistic and into the embodied and relational practices of practice that this dataset observes.