While it has never been easier to learn DIY skills for a variety of interesting projects, it’s equally easy to over extend yourself in areas that are beyond your current understanding.
I have a close friend that threw all of her eggs into one basket when she quit her long time job to be a professional painter.
This was after learning how to paint using Youtube videos, not by getting any kind of formal training whatsoever. While this works to some peoples advantage in places like the music industry, it doesn’t necessarily translate the same way in the visual art world when working with galleries that aren’t strictly doing outsider or postmodern artwork. Generally speaking, the artists who sell their work in these venues have been training their skills for a lifetime. They took art classes, joined competitions, and had years upon years of rejections before being accepted into the larger art community. So it’s sort of foolish to think that any outsider with barely any training or skill could “shake up” the art world as a pure DIY artist. But it’s also easy to fall into the DIY trap with other things like home improvement projects. I tried to build a large concrete deck behind my house without using rebar to reinforce the concrete. Aside from failing to use proper rebar tie wire reinforcement, I also used cheap imported concrete. After two years of heavy rain, wind, snow, and hail, the concrete started to crumble and fall apart. Now I’m stuck trying to either fix this mess or start over from scratch using the proper rebar tie wire reinforcement this time around.