The artist plotline is a little goofy, but it's following a pretty stereotypical pattern so far that's more common than some of you seem to be aware. Basically these stories go as such: poor artist boy is deeply talented and passionate, but reality has thus far deprived him of the opportunity to fulfill that passion, he lives his life paycheck to paycheck neglecting his passion because he believes he can only be passionate or successful but not both, until someone criticizes his work for lacking passion, his worldview is shaken, and through many trials and tribulations, comes to realize with the aid of his critic he can actually be both passionate and successful.
When you apply that basic template, the story falls into place, it's actually been pretty formulaic so far on the formatting. What the author's fumbled is that Elena lacks the background to prop up the stereotype in any of her identities. The norm in this type of story is that the criticism which kicks our starving artist onto his feet is from someone he aspires toward, either because of some pre-established authority in the artist's life, or authority that's acquired later. The criticism typically comes from an older artist, or critic, or patron, usually famed for their knowledge and love of the arts, or less often from another artist in his age group who found success through passion in the first place.