make money from art

I am using various web based graphic design outlets to sell Tee-shirt designs, and stuff. the one that I highly recommend is http://www.zazzle.com

if you like that you might like my gallery there: http://www.zazzle.com/daas_1

but that is what I am doing to start with graphic arts. I am also learning to play bass guitar, and keyboard…as well as writing music using MIDI software for the computer. As I progress, I intend to sell the music on a CD with images that I create. An all around art experience.

dave.

I’m having the best time. I’m making a sculpture for a show. It’s very time consuming but I love it. It’s such a shame though that when my show arrives I’ll have to stop making the art that I really want to make and make the stuff that sells, so that I can live and eat and eventually go on holiday (I really want to go on holiday).

I was thinking about my markets that I do. Essentially at these markets I need to make money but I don’t want to put all my energy into this because I really want to make sculptures for installations, however sculptures for installations don’t tend to sell very often. I need to go to Japan, they love paper installations and are quite happy to pay people to make them, which fits quite nicely with my holiday plan. Hmmmmmm.

of my new job but I’m just so amazed at what a brill time I’m having. I keep having to pinch myself when people ask me my opinions and during some training today where we were looking at new and unusual marketing ploys, I found myself coming up with some ideas that got the whole room brimming with excitement. Ideas that are usually saved for the living room after dinner with Lucyann2 devising silly and brilliant plans of world takeover.

When I went for the interview I had to write a project that I would deliver. Of course I had no idea what to write so I came up with a fantasy paper and lights winter faerietale festival that I thought only I would want to attend but now while I was talking to my colleage this is actually something that might well happen. I just can’t believe it and am having to find more faith in myself that I didn’t realise was even there, that some silly idea of mine was actually feasible. I know there will be lots of other stuff on the job that won’t be as fun as this and maybe even office politics to overcome but I’m just so happy to be doing a really fun job and for the first time in my working history I look forward to getting up in the morning and going to work. Whooopeee!

I also got a call today about running my first workshop in a few weeks time. I just cannot believe that only a few weeks ago I was so depressed at my work situation and that making the decision to quit when I had nothing to go to was simply the best decision I have ever made. Sometimes you just need to have faith in the unknown. Thank you unknown, you rock!

This week is (as I see it) the first week of the rest of my life. It is the week where I start to do things because I want to do them and not because I have to, to make ends meet. The only thing I have to do now is live within my means which by all accounts is a far better thing than having to work a dull boring and soul destroying job because I want to have a resonable amount to live on to buy all the pretty things in the world. I don’t actually need all the pretty things, what I need is to be creative and to think for myself.

Anyway I started my new really cool, really exciting job this week where I get to find ways to engage students in community activities and not file students paperwork away, where I get to think up exciting projects and schemes for students to take part in, where I get to be asked my opinion and not have to minute other peoples opinions. It is also the week where I can spend more time on my own creative exploits and fill my days off with making and sewing and glueing pretty things for people who have really dull jobs to make them feel better about their own (non) existance… ahh the circle of life.

Today I have made three new books for a market on Sunday and done some work for an exhibition I’m organising on Saturday. This is fabulous. I get to work on the things I really love. It’s superb!

Only ten days or so after deciding that I needed to make drastic changes to my working schedule so that I could fit in my art practice and creative work.. The work that one day will earn me my full wage, I have secured a part time job. Not only is it part time but it’s also a totally amazing job, a job that allows me to be creative and use my existing skills, a job that I actually can’t wait to do. It was however the most rigorous interview process I have ever come across. A presentation, 30 minute interview and 45 minute written assignment, thank god I got it!

Okay so now I have a month to set things in place. It’s my last month of a full time job and wage. I know once I start working part time purse strings will have to be tightened and I need to use the days I won’t be working, as effectively as I possibly can. Above all though I’m so damn happy that I’m going to be making creative work, I have a job that isn’t administrative, that is something I’m so excited about doing and is using my skills and interests. Whoopee!

The pay is going to be slim so a plan of action is the next thing to get me more money yay!

The shop seriously needs some new products, smaller cheaper products sell quicker and more often, so stationery here I come! This is a priority because I need money quite quickly. I want to have some designs ready for printing by the time I start my new job in 4 weeks time. Then one day a week will be spent on this. I intend to use the print workshop probably at least one full day 10am – 9pm once a month. The earliest I could probably benefit from this is by the end of September. Once I have more products in my shop I’ll be able to sign up for some craft fairs, hopefully I’ll be able to get some Christmas markets.

I have a deadline to finish a painstakingly time consuming sculpture by October. This is also a priority because the exhibition has been confirmed and publicity is due out this week. I can work on this now and then spend at least one day a week on it when I start my new job. I’m unsure if this will provide any money but there is scope to do a workshop and be part of an artist book fair which could make me money.

I have a commission to produce some origami christmas trees, yes folks you heard it right.. And also run a workshop probably on making paper christmas decorations. This is going to happen in a busy shopping centre which scares me. This is less of a priority and can probably wait until after the exhibition opens in October.

I’d like to do an adult education certificate so that I can run workshops, but it looks like I won’t be able to afford this, luckily I’ve joined a scheme where artists are teamed up with tutors to run their own workshops so hopefully this is a better way of doing it.

I’ve ran out of ways to make money, hmmm any ideas?

and amidst all of the scariness, the obsessing about money, all the dresses I pass in shop windows on Northumberland Street, taunting me, all the chinese menus that I’ve hidden in drawers underneath other chinese menus, I know handing my notice in was the right thing to do. So now I have lots and lots of work ahead of me, like finding a part time job for one but most of all putting in motion my projects that will enable me to make work that will earn me some money. It’s good that I can take on odd jobs here and there if I need to, something I was unable to do before.

First up though is a shop makeover. I’m going to design, print and produce a collection of stationery type things to sell along with my book sculptures, then I’m going to market myself to death. I’m definitely going to do an adult learning certifiate because then I can run workshops which I’ve been scared of before but actually thinking about it I’m more scared of starving from having no money than I am of running a workshop. See, quitting your job gives you the fear and fear actually makes you get off your backside and make things happen. Bring it on!

Yesterday my work had decided to put me forward for some training in administration, not only that but to get a qualification out of it. It’s optional and even though I kept saying “I’ll have to think about it” because my manager was sitting there, inside my head I was screaming ‘GET ME OUT OUT OUT!’ Last week I had decided to leave my job, this week I had decided to be sensible and stay until the end of the school year which runs until the end of september, partly so I didn’t have to pay back any holidays I had already taken and partly because I’ll be in a slightly better financial position. However yesterday made me rethink my entire situation. I have no interest in doing the training, if they had recruited someone else then they might have wanted to progress in admin whereas I don’t. If I leave at the end of September the new person will be thrown into the deep end because it’ll be really busy with all the students back, if I left in a month then it wouldn’t be so much, I hate to let people down, everyone here is so good and nice, but I’m unhappy and I need to do something about it. I’m on the edge of wanting to jump off but I’m worried I won’t know where I’ll end up. I’m worried I won’t be able to afford it. But my last resort is to temp for a while if it all goes wrong. There’s always a back up plan.

Here I am again, stuck in the hell that is admin when I’d rather be making art and being creative. This time I have to do something about it. I’m so focused on money all the time, I think that paying all the bills and eating well and buying pretty dresses is necessary. Well it’s not, what’s suffering here is my quality of life. I go to work and spend all day doing a job I dislike, a job that does nothing for my prospects, future, creativity, a job that pays me enough to live on, then when I leave my life really begins, that’s the time where I make work and put plans in place for my creative future, but I’ve come to realise it just isn’t enough. If this is really what I want to do (and I’m 100% certain it is) then I need to start acting that way, making sacrafices for this, which includes putting the dresses on hold, eating cheaply, throwing that darn chinese menu away! But most of all if I am serious about this, I need to set myself deadlines and stick to them. I am not an administrator, I never was, therefore It shouldn’t be a job that I do.

Obviously I’m not an idiot, I know I can’t just walk out. Oh gosh how amazing would it be to just walk out! I’m moving to a new house in September, a beautiful handsome new house that is red on the outside by the way. It’s a new beginning so with a new house and new flatmates and a new neighbourhood, must come a change in my work circumstances too. I need to find a job that is (a) in the arts or related to the arts (b) part time© Money will be tight but the way I see it, there is no other option for me. I will survive because I have to survive, ten years ago I lived off £300 a month. Just last year when I was studying I was living off £500 a month. In Glasgow I lived off only my student loan and a few cash in hand jobs. I lived off nothing but lentils and rice. If I can do it then, I can do it now.

My goal is to leave my admin job by 30th September. I have things in place that will subsidise some of that income at least and it means I can spend time on making art. I’ve recently discovered the joys of screen printing again so the possibilities for that are endless. I also have two exhibitions coming up later this year, one of them is a selling exhibition, get in!

I even might just bite the bullet and do a post 16 teaching certificate, which would be far better than the job I do now.

I’m planning on taking the big leap and build me a big ole website. I’ve never been that bothered before, I have myspaces, etsy and a blog to take care of my internet prescence but it makes sense to make all these things role into one. I’ve seperated things like my writing from my art because they were different things, but essentially they all have one thing in common and that’s me so I think I should put them in the same space. With the website I can separate the things while they live under the same umberella. Ironically I missed a crucial website course I had signed up for months ago, but with time, diligence and patience I’m sure I can make something that works.

There’s been a lot of attention on the wordpress site I’ve noticed that many of my artist friends are using, the templates are more versatille and website like as opposed to blog like than Blogger is and it’s quite easy to set up a domain name where you can lose the wordpress bit, so I’m going to start researching that.

The other reason I want to make a website (possibly the main reason) is because I can’t see a clear line of thought or process with all the different strands I have going on. The website will allow me to upload images of the things I have achieved and see where there are gaps to grow. My shop for instance is going well but could do with more variety, the installation side doesn’t have any new projects in and I’m unsure of where/when and who my next exhibition is with. I can list things like my skill set and advertise myself for workshops and education and also list future events and shows that I’m running with the gallery I’m part of. All in all having a website is the way to go and I don’t know why I didn’t do this in the first place.

I think that the problem I’ve been having with my career options is that although I have many skills and qualifications, I still keep going back to admin. I seem to be afraid to use the things I have learned in the real world, because I may subconciously feel that I am not good enough for anything more that admin. This must stop immediately, so now that I have a pretty secure admin role, I am making a concerted effort to only apply for opportunities that are related to my degree/creative interests.

Already I have found one that is related to my degree and I am qualified to do, hurrah. It’s a traineeship to work in galleries and museums, which is ideal because I am currently in the process of organising some exhibitions and events which will take place in a small gallery that is attached to a small pub and music venue. The thing that bothers me though, is that it is only aimed at people from African/Asian/Chinese descent, of which I am, so no problem there, but why should it matter what my heritage is? There appears to be a very small percent from these origins who go into the art sector, I don’t know why that is, but from my experience I have gained every job on my own personal merit, there are as much opportunity for anyone regardless of their skin colour, I went to a mixed racial school (albeit a rather violent one) because when I was younger me and my brother were bullied because we looked different (we’d previously attended all white christian schools) In all honestly I think I experienced more prejudice at that school than any of the ones before. Growing up I was from an Asian dominated economically deprived community, but I know that I and every other person I knew had the same opportunity as anyone else.

The other thing I’m very aware of is that I’m mixed race and where exactly do I sit with that? I mean is it alright to apply for an opportunity that only covers half my heritage, am I seen as using it to my advantage? But then I cannot deny the fact that I am Korean, something I’m very proud of and increasingly spiritually, emotionally and physically aware of. I was singled out when I was younger because of this very fact, a fact that at the time I hated being but now couldn’t love more. Sometimes I resent the fact that there is no evidence of my Koreaness in my name, that the englishness in me has taken over, become the dominant race. When you are mixed race can you truly be an equal balance of both? Or do you have to choose one or the other?