The Fluffy Don't Stop

It has been a challenging last three weeks, trying to focus all my non-day job energies (which  sadly do NOT come from a bottomless well) into doing businessy things for my SBDC guided self-study, wherein I teach myself a DIY business degree of sorts.  Real business people will be offended no doubt that I compare my rather painful learning curve to their years of study, but considering I'm starting from Reverse to 60 mph, not just 0-60, I'm going to call it whatever I need to to make myself feel good that I'm really learning necessary things.

If you had told me as a teen I would be doing financial projections one day, I'd be sobbing into my Wheat Chex about what will happen to my soul as a grown-up.  Because although I still don't feel mature, I guess doing this "taking my art seriously as a business" thing means I've decided to grow up.  Boo.  

But the good news is, once I get the grown up parts of my day over with, (once I'm really and truly doing art as my job,) I get to be totally un-grown up for vast spans of time, too!  The hard part is that right now, there is WAAAAY too much grown up and not nearly enough silliness. 

And it is still raining.  I still prefer the crushing depression of the clouds to the shivery rage of the great white north, but it does not make it much easier.  The good news is, the rain is warming up and we see glorious pockets of sunshine many days now!

Do we ever not obsess about the weather?  I guess in Hawaii, where it is almost always perfect, you obsess about other things.

In exciting, less grown-up feeling news, I meet with the owner of a neato restaurant next week to see if he would like to hang some paintings of yours truly up as a show!  Woo hoo!  My first real Portland show!  I guess it is official - the years-long mild depression from the earth-shattering move across country during the Great Recession is over!  Now all I need to contend with is the normal amount of cloud moroseness.  I seem to be handling that.

And I am looking forward to this aspect of getting a handle on my business model soon:  I want to see Vermont again this year.  It's not "home" any more, but it is "the homeland."  Makes sense to me.  September seems cheapest - now I just have to figure out if it will become a business trip or just a social call.  Order up some extra humidity for me!

Comments

[Dug North]

I've been doing the DIY business education too. It is NOT easy for me. I found a series of very inexpensive courses with my local small business assistance center. Very nice folks who really want to help. At least I am learning what I have to learn.

I haven't ordered it yet, but I've heard good things about this book: 'The Profitable Artist: A Handbook for All Artists in the Performing, Literary, and Visual Arts'.

Let me know if you find good info for the math/business-challenged. I need all the help I can get.

-Dug

[Martha Hull]

Looks like we are in very much the same boat. I adore my local SBDC, but they don't do all the hard work for me, sadly. Wish someone, anyone, had mentioned them ten years ago as I was rolling out of art school with stars in my eyes.

I'm going to Powell's (the best bookstore in the world) this week to pick up that book. I really like Jackie B. Petersen's workbook on how to narrow down your business - I think you are more there than me, but you might like it. http://www.bettersmarterricher.com/about/ (There are links to a little bit of free stuff at the bottom.) I love the concept of "solopreneur." I'm off to do my SBDC homework now - to try to imagine how much stuff I'll need to spend to really make my business fly, and how much I need to make, and probably breathe into a paper bag.