ZAPPA THE ENTREPENEUR: Balance between art and commerce

From a young age, Zappa discovered that working steady art jobs that interested him would not be enough to support him and his lifestyle.  In fact, the Mothers never made money to speak of, and frequently could not even earn enough to eat.  (Zappa's lifelong intestinal problems were greatly augmented by his poor diet, due in part to a lack of money on the road to properly feed him and the band).

Early on in his career, Zappa took several jobs, none of which stuck, that he found some kind of artistic or expressive fulfilment from, even in small ways.  An early example was his job at Nile Running Greeting Card studio, where he designed ads for the cards and worked in the silkscreen department.  While not artistically challenging work, he still liked it and was very good at what he did.  He was even allowed to design a line of cards after having worked at Nile for a while - experimental work that was more "Zappa" and less mainstream.

What IS true about Zappa is that he had always been an inventer and an innovator.  He CREATED, he INVENTED, he STARTED, he CHALLENGED.  Therefore, it seems that he was his most satisfied and thrived the most when he was allowed to create and play around with different ideas, using art and music as avenues for this.  The money wasn't something that really ever came in droves.  It makes one wonder how possible it is to stay true to one's own creative ideas AND financially profit from them at the same time.   For Zappa, he could not really marry art, not HIS art, and commerce.