Abstract
The question of how artists perceive their identity in relation to their work has been considered by researchers with many concluding that artists can be considered entrepreneurs as much as they can be considered artists and both can be true at the same time. Indeed, the identity question extends to how artistic output is classified, with some artists preferring to refer to their artistic output as “art” while others external to the artistic processes refer to the artistic output as “products”. However, if artists can be entrepreneurs it is also true that artistic output can be art, products or artistic products. While these may seem to be synonymous terms, their implications on successful creative entrepreneurship and artists’ potential to sustain a livelihood from their artistry cannot be disregarded. This is especially true in developing economies like Zimbabwe where demand for artistic products is undermined by macro-environmental factors including high unemployment, low income and high cost of living which make for a challenging economic climate. Artists need the commercial awareness and skills associated with agile entrepreneurship to operate successfully in such an economic climate. This developmental paper seeks to explore literature on the impact of artists’ identity on creative entrepreneurship. The paper will also explore if entrepreneurial artists have distinguishing characteristics that can be adopted by “pure” artists in order to embed commercial practices in their creative process. The benefits of embedding an entrepreneurial approach to the artistic process will be outlined for consideration by artists.