Hello!
It’s been a minute since we’ve had a catch up. If I am honest I have been in a funk off and on for a few months now. I feel really introverted and thoughtful and haven’t felt like I want to share anything yet cause I am not sure what it is. So much of sharing can feel like it solidifies things, or boxes me in sometimes and I don’t want to do that. BUT I was reminded in the locker room yesterday by a fellow swimmer and artist that sharing is also processing and so maybe we can enter into sharing (I am mainly speaking to myself here) with the understanding that in sharing I am processing and moving through my thoughts in a softer less rigid way. I have a good amount of client work currently- two large projects that I have been working on for over 3 months- one is almost done and the other involves a mural install that hasn’t happened yet and feels exciting and daunting at the same time. That said, I have no client work lined up for when these finish out at the end of the month. This feels stressful and hard and the general consensus from peers in the illustration industry is that work is drying up quite a bit. I feel stressed about money, but I also do not want to make choices out of desperation. It can feel hard to know what to do in these scenarios- and I am sharing just because it’s honest and part of this life.
Rather than teach more and make less work I am doing the opposite. I am letting myself teach less and do more creative work. I have to get back to why I am doing this- I love teaching and I currently am feeling a bit overwhelmed by how much teaching I have been doing. Teaching is beautiful and hard and requires so much of giving myself to others. I can often feel that I don’t have much left for me. I am teaching two classes this fall at CCA and with that in mind I have been focusing on a few things. The first being making work for me- you can see a photo below of some paintings and drawings I have in progress. This is an extension of the world I was building for my graphic novel- it isn’t the same but it sits alongside it.
The other thing I have been focusing on is really prepping for my fall classes so that I don’t have to feel like all of my time and attention is on those classes outside of class time- so I am prepping samples, and going above and beyond what I normally have prepped. The last three semesters I have tended to do prep as needed as I go through the semester because I didn’t really know what I would need or how it would go. This feels like a gift to me and to my students.
I am writing to you just as I finished up a client project and sent it over to them for approval and thought, you know, now feels like a good time to share some thoughts on creativity and client work and the push and pull that that relationship provides.
A few announcements first- if you have wanted to take a long form class with me and haven’t yet- I am not sure when I will be teaching Yellow Brick Road again since my schedule is really packed but I am launching the third edition of Night Class starting in August- you can learn more about it here.
I also made some mentoring spots available on my website and you can hear more about those here.
I actually thought I had other announcements but I can’t think of them so that’s it! Onto discussing client work and failure! Fun!
I had someone ask me on instagram if I could discuss how I manage client work and making things for pay that don’t always align with my taste or what I would normally make! And I fully know these feelings and am happy to talk about it.
First I want to share how my experience with client work has evolved- because it has, and its been slow and taken me awhile to land where I am now. Currently I don’t often find myself in positions of making things I don’t like or am not excited about for client work- this is due to a few things but the biggest one in my mind is that I have created income streams that allow me to say no to work that doesn’t align with my interests. Other factors are- my work is pretty cohesive and my point of view has evolved to a place that most people hiring me trust me to make work in the way that only I could make work. This is due to making work for a long time! My work didn’t always feel this way- and I took on a lot of clients and projects that I wasn’t sure about and made things that sometimes did or did not align with what I wanted just to learn and grow and see how they felt.
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