| Trope | Percentage odds (1-year) |
|---|
| Work inspired by tragic loss | ✅ |
| Tormented gestural paintings | 5% |
| Anguished self portrait | 10% |
| Corny protest art | 15% |
| Work inspired by a dream | ✅ |
| Use bodily fluids in a piece | 35% |
| Be told your work isn't art | ✅ |
| Create "masterpiece" | 8% |
| Nude painting/sculpture | 5% |
| Take years to finish a work | 40% |
| Exploit marginalized group for art | 55% |
| Visit foreign country for inspiration | ✅ |
| Get called a sellout | 40% |
| Sell art on the street | 15% |
| Art Basel | 30% |
| Invited to a biennial | 25% |
| Flee a war | 2% |
| Work placed in a museum | ✅ |
| Work placed in the Met/MoMA | 1% |
| Work placed in the Louvre | 0.0003% |
| First gallery show | ✅ |
| Auction at auction house | ✅ |
| Obscenely large sculptural installation | 40% |
| Rejected by a gallery | 100% |
| Go on food stamps | 1% |
| Sell a work for 5 figures | ✅ |
| Sell a work for 6 figures | 1% |
| Sell a work for 7 figures | 0.007% |
| Magazine cover feature | 5% |
| Public commission | 20% |
| Work made entirely by assistants | 100% |
| Open studio | 31% |
| Hiatus | 100% |
| Retire | 0% |
| Hailed as creative genius | 25% |
| Get critically panned | 27% |
| Find a patron | 23% |
| Write a memoir | 0.5% |
| Delay release date | ✅ |
| Art stolen | 19% |
| Work decried by later generations as x-ist | ✅ |
| Self-indulgent release party | ✅ |
| Get called "washed up" | 3% |
| Die in poverty | 0.00025% |
| Do commercial work | 22% |
| Plead with friends to buy your art | ✅ |
| Try to get sued for publicity | 100% |
| Take teaching position | 9% |
| Work vandalized by activists | 5% |
| Media exposé | 0.3% |
| Get canceled | 5% |
| Overdose | 0.5% |
| Substance abuse issue | 1% |
| Shoot up | 0.5% |
| Secret drug habit | 2.5% |
| Life-changing psychedelic trip | 25% |
| Declare sobriety | 8% |
| Alcoholism | 0.03% |
| Lean on alcohol for creative output | 13% |
| Publicly scoff at "the mainstream" | 10% |
| Write a manifesto | 50% |
| Champion a new school of art | ✅ |
| Pretentious artist statement | 51% |
| Call yourself a "conceptual artist" | ✅ |
| Allegations of abuse | 0.2% |
| Estrange family | 0.008% |
| Lash out at critics | 6% |
| Feud with another artist | 7% |
| Collab with another artist | ✅ |
| Secret child | 0.02% |
| Week with no human contact | 1% |
| Commit suicide | 0.001% |
| Mental health diagnosis | 19% |
| Psych ward stay | 0.2% |
| Public meltdown | 0.1% |
| Cut off body part | 1% |
| Tragic early death | 0.0025% |
| Join the 27 Club | 0% |
| Manic episode | 0.8% |
| Fit of manic artistic inspiration | 17% |
| Have a Blue Period | 3% |
| Outlandish facial hair | 8% |
| Get a tattoo | 63% |
| Female alter ego | 57% |
| Work under pseudonym | 12% |
| Cross dress | 3% |
| Sport eyebrow-raising hair-do | 2% |
| Claim not to be an artist | 40% |
| Adopt a wild animal | 6% |
| Get called “eccentric” | 41% |
| Carry sketchbook around | 11% |
| Get MFA | 15% |
| Wear a beret (in public) | 0.00000001% |
| Practice nudism | 1.5% |
| Give child unorthodox name | 0.003% |
| Get a piercing | 4% |
| Open relationship | 0.005% |
| Abuse partner | 0.002% |
| Fall madly in love | ✅ |
| On-again-off-again relationship | 1% |
| Sexual harassment allegations | 0.4% |
| Adopt a muse | 24% |
| Have an affair | 0.1% |
| Come out of the closet | 0.3% |
| Experience heartbreak | 20% |
| Get STD | 0.1% |
| Dedicate work to a lover | 55% |
| Portrait of a lover | 65% |
| Experience unrequited love | 0.2% |
| Fall in love with another artist | 1% |
| Impregnate mistress | 0.02% |
| Deny paternity | 0.0004% |
| Groom a young woman | 0.6% |
| Find "soulmate" | 21% |
| Sleep with a gallerist | 0.0032% |
| Love triangle | 0.17% |
| Woo a lover with art | 23% |
| Make advances on assistant | 0.5% |
| Live with other artists | ✅ |
| Start a commune | 2% |
| Move to Brooklyn | ✅ |
| Start a collective | 39% |
| Lead social justice movement | 1% |
| Identify as nonbinary | 0.9% |
| Gentrify a neighborhood | 4% |
| Spiritual quest to Asia | 5% |
| Life-changing meditative experience | 60% |
| Spiritual rebirth | 25% |