Dave Bonta's three-line poem turns on a pun. The speaker is a painter who spends the whole day staring at the paint in front of them, and the phrase "in the red" has two meanings at once. Literally, the speaker is surrounded by red pigment. Figuratively, being "in the red" means being in debt, which fits the title's starving artist, someone who makes art but can't make a living from it.
The key phrase is "of my own making." It suggests the speaker feels responsible for the situation. The debt is the result of choosing to paint, and the red is also something the speaker has literally made. The line sounds rueful rather than angry, and there's a dry humor in it, as if the speaker can see the joke even while stuck inside it.
The mood is wry and quietly weary. The poem is so short that it feels like a shrug: this is what devotion to art costs, and the speaker knows it.