It's a bit of a blessing and a curse at times. I put myself through college and I was determined to not let my degree go to waste. I worked so hard on my portfolio during high school to get into my reach school. However my grades sucked and so did my SAT scores because I was also working and taking care of my Mom with cancer. I couldn't even go on the interview because I could leave her for the day. So my portfolio, and basically only that, got me into the school.
So with having an Art degree, it's a bit of a contradiction in several ways. You get into the school because you prove you have what they're looking for in a student. Then they strip all your incorrect technique away and start you from scratch teaching what makes art pleasing to look at (or even why the opposite works). Then when you graduate you're supposed to make art that works for other people to sell and find appealing.
In the beginning after I graduated, I didn't really have art that was my own personal art. I usually got offered commissions to do portraits so usually it was one after the other heading out the door. I was always fearful of losing a sale, so I always said yes. Who would turn down work in a profession that's known to not make money? The concept didn't register for a long time. I have been doing it since high school so I knew how to work commissions into my life, however the more experience I got the more detailed more work went as well. It gets boring and repetitive with long hours isolated.
However, I was always crafty too and made things. So when Etsy hit I had already been selling for a long time and new how to market and sell a product line. That's usually the hardest bridge for artist to cross because we're not "people pleasers" by nature. So now I focus less on commissions and more on making art that can be produced more than once or semi quickly, so if there's a personal project I have the time to work on it and don't need worry about if it makes money or not.
TLDR: to be successful, you need to know your audience and how to market. Sometimes it's hard to be creative when money is on the line.