Studio Update – March
Following on from my ‘Quick Studio Update’ HERE this month March has proven to be quite a challenging month from the point of view of being creative and building my conceptual processes and income streams but it has been useful for securing me some funds which mean for a few months at least my savings won’t be raided as hard as they have been since the new year!
Momentum Preservation
I’ve had jobs on that were related to my corporate career and I’ve started a part time role in that world too. This will bring me some stable income to help pay the bills and I’m pretty sure I’m going to enjoy it, however it brings with it the need to be disciplined with my energy to ensure that I don’t lose my creative momentum. I think this will likely be the biggest challenge of the next few months and we will see how we get on! Aside from that I had a one off job the week before which ended up impinging on my week this week too, with the added insult of being treated quite disrespectfully at times, reminding me of why I am now trying to become independent of this work and only work it, if I want to. That’ll be the dream for the time being.
To add to this I have become involved with some activities in my local community which are going to be very worthwhile but have also taken up some bandwidth and been quite unfortunately timed. On top of all this, we have a sick cat who I think is on the mend hopefully, along with another cat who is most upset at not getting their usual amount of attention. This has resulted in the last few weeks in me having hardly any time for my creative work.
Stabilisation
Despite all this, none of it is negative from a wealth or development point of view and I’ve managed to get some traction with upcycling, and encouragingly, each of my creative income streams is beginning to show early signs of life. This does not include the conceptual work which will be a slow burn, however these green shoots are coming from things not from my old life and are something new, things that I have done myself starting from scratch and this is an important milestone for me as it is the first sign that I can do it and that there is potential in my ideas.
Not profound, yet popular
Studio Ideas
Whilst work completed may have temporarily slowed, the ideas have not and I am excited to get back to it this week with a set of jewellery for fast sales off website that will be the second creative income stream that I hope to start to get some traction, in this I must play a numbers game so have to get started to build quick but aesthetically pleasing stock that still offers something different to what can usually be found on online marketplaces.
Conceptual ideas have also been added to my notebook. I am currently puzzling through the next piece in my corporate and power collection, fighting the sneaking feeling that maybe I should actually concentrate on a couple of easy wins that would not take as long to formulate and create but my mind keeps coming back to this second piece, so perhaps I should listen. Meanwhile sketches and half formed thoughts continue to flow whenever I take a moment, even if I haven’t had quite so many moments as I’d have liked in the last few weeks.
Last but certainly not least I have a box full of stuff that needs to be upcycled, here again we have the ideas ready and the implementation is what needs to happen next. Finding that flow alongside my stabilising income is going to be the challenge in the coming weeks and lets not forget all the necessary social media and advertising and networking which I have not even really begun to think about but is looming large on my to do list!
Adaptable
So, it does strike me that what’s needed in all of this is some adaptability, the irony of this is not lost on me, given my comments in respect of that word and general corporate speak in my blog about my piece ‘Resilience/Druck’ HERE.
The important distinction now is – this time it is entirely my choice.
To read my other updates click HERE
To see some of my completed pieces go HERE