On Design: Rethinking (Perhaps) a Creative Life

In the Tulip Garden of Good and Acid, 2018, 9x12, acrylic on canvas
made as part of a prize package in celebration of over 300 followers
on my Instagram account

It has been approximately a decade since I originally picked up a paint brush, repurposed a neighbor's used canvas, and laid down my first strokes of acrylic. My designing career began a few years after that, and I have never looked back. I am truly proud of my ability to go beyond the small box into which family and society might want to place me. 

Nevertheless, I have throughout this period always had a day job. I refuse to discuss that job in public spaces for many reasons. I have never, however, felt that having a day job was incompatible with my creative life. Actually, I find the latter helps and informs the former, but that is a whole 'nother blog post. 

The subject is top-of-mind because of this recent post on the Craft Industry Alliance's blog and a subsequent discussion thread on Ravelry in one of the designer groups. In the article, one person discusses her evolution from trying to find financial success solely in the gig economy (defined in Google's disctionary as "a labor market characterized by the prevalence of short term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs") to a transition to a full-time teaching job, with a side of creative. The author notes at the end that she has no intention of giving up her creative life, and has new projects in the pipeline. I get where she is coming from.

Additionally, I took some (rather unwarranted, I felt) heat in the Ravelry discussion for refusing to box all creatives into one of two categories (arbitrarily set by Bob-only-knows-who): those who create/design for reasons other than money, and those who do it solely to be monetarily successful. Personally, I find this dichotomy to be so much bull crap. Anyone who knows me will see this next statement as pure Voie de Vie - I find it is about choice. In this 2016 McKinsey Global Institute report, the authors put gig economy workers into one of four boxes, with one of the main qualifiers being choice vs. necessity. (Personally, I still find this rather limiting, but I digress.)

I am truly grateful for my creative life. It has positively factored into my living wages for several years now. It can be difficult, however, to sustain fidelity to my own creative vision (which, admittedly, continues to evolve) in the face of pressure, subtle or otherwise, to just monetize the hell out of every little thing I do. I find that approach muscularly white-collar and business-centric. That is not why I initially picked up that paint brush almost a decade ago. It did not animate me then. It will not inspire me now.

I hope you stay tuned to see what is inspiring me. Things are planned between now and the end of the year. It's been a busy 2018 so far (13 new designs, 1 new painting, another curated summer collection), and I could not be more thrilled, no matter how many feet I have planted in the gig economy.