“There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.”
― Edward de Bono
The BIG question of money has come up a lot with clients, friends, as well as for me, in these tough economic times. A few of my Developing Your Creative Practice clients had to push back their applications this time around as they needed to focus on paid work.
We all know that it’s important as creative thinkers to keep creating and putting stuff out there. At the same time, we are aware that our creative practice often doesn’t pay the bills and gets put onto the ‘back burner’.
Now is the time to focus on building your creative business
David Kadavy explains the reasons for this here. He says that art represents ‘self-actualization’ in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Without financial security, it’s hard to meet our basic needs and, beyond that, our needs for belonging and self-esteem. That’s why our creativity suffers. Not a great place to start when are finding it hard enough to find space to create.
How are you meeting your needs at the moment?
Most of the creatives I work with are in the middle of their careers. They have got an understanding of how they can make money from their art. Most are finding it a bit of a battle to keep their head above water at the moment.
Depending on how I’m feeling I go from…
– it’s all going well”, one day
– to an unhelpful middle-of-the-night panic the next.
To help you think it through, here is my 5 step process to help you to increase your creative income
1. Think back to a ‘normal’ work period …12 months, if that works for you. Now go through your accounts making a list of all your paid jobs and income sources.
2. Group the jobs, including arts and non-arts things, into types of work ie. workshops might go together, commissions, working for someone else, etc. Then work out the total income for each.
3. Now go through each group and give each a point if they meet these criteria:
- Paid enough to pay the bills
- Inspired and excited me
- Created useful connections
4. In good times, my advice is to only continue the projects that score at least 2 points. That may not be possible in the current climate. So, your next task is to put the job groups into an order of priority so that they support you to do what you do. You may feel that you want to give an extra point to the ones that make money, and that’s fine, I’ll leave that up to you.
5. Finally, think about what you have discovered from this activity. Which areas of work will you focus on to build a sustainable creative business in the next 12 months? What will you stop? Is there a development area that would score 2 or more points that you want to start?
How did you get on?
I’d love to hear if you making any changes to increase your income and keep your creative practice on track?
Drop me an email and let me know.
If any of my blog has made you smile, think or make a change please share, follow me or sign up to my e-news.
