SFMOMA's Open Space blog recently posted up one of the better “grass-is-always-greener” looks at the NYC vs. SF debate from an artist's perspective:

So anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, how New York is so much better than San Francisco. I mean, that’s what I kept hearing when I was drinking beer at the Uptown on 17th Street or at Specs in
North Beach. Or when I was having my morning coffee at café Trieste. All I’d hear was New York this, New York that. It’s where all the REAL artists go. If you listen to what a lot of people say you might
just believe all you need to do to get rich and famous is just pack your bags and move out here.

After all, that’s what Wayne Thiebaud did in 1961. After having no luck showing in San Francisco while he was teaching at UC Davis, he decided to drive across the country with his friend Mel Ramos. They had all their canvases rolled up in the back seat and just took them from dealer to dealer until Alan Stone gave him a solo show. Simple. Thiebaud shot to fame as a pop artist and now his paintings are worth millions. So if he could do it, why not you? Then there’s Kehinde Wiley and Aaron Young – both of whom went to the San Francisco Art Institute just a few years ago, got graduate degrees at Yale and then moved to New York and got rich and famous. So why not you?

Yes, why not me? It all sounded so compelling when I was living a block from the Transamerica Pyramid building in Chinatown. The success stories were told over and over like a mantra but the reality is that artists moving to New York are like wannabe actors moving to Hollywood – their are only so many roles and far too many actors. And out of the actors who actually have a shot – there are very, very few really gifted ones. It’s the same with art. In Hollywood there are thousands of “actors” working as waiters and in New York there are thousands of “artists” working as art handlers or dishwashers. Seriously.

Read on.