Yeah if it's 5 years i would be very worried about finding employment the day after and having a 5-year gap in my resume. Would the hiring manager care that I was working on my art?
Five years is a long enough time to let you do whatever you're going to decide to do with the first part, and then work on recovering employability/resume credibility/whatever with the last part. An interesting question would be how peoples' behavior changes through the five years, though...