It is my birthday tomorrow and I have, unsurprisingly, been thinking a lot about the last year. It’s been an amazing 12 months, with The Seagrass Walk and the van. I can almost taste the precipice of potential and opportunity before me. It’s scary and wonderful.
I have spent a lot of this week researching tiny ovens, vanlife boilers, and heating systems. I have a new spreadsheet full of shifting figures as I try to ensure I have the money to complete my van build. So far, thankfully, it is looking positive. The figures are adding up and leaving enough for pipes, taps, and yet more timber.
I really want a copper splash back behind my oven, and a beautiful piece of wood for my kitchen side. I need a comfortable mattress and new sheets. I want good quality mosquito nets to hang over the doors. There are essentials and there are desires. I am hoping some careful budgeting will allow both to become realities.
Budgeting for big projects is something I had to learn for my art, and that I got very good at during The Seagrass Walk. After all, ideas are free but making art is frustratingly expensive. Without a well worked out and ever adapted budget it easily goes from frustrating to impossible.
It is this challenge that makes life as an artist hard. Without knowing where the next piece of funding will come from, the next commission, the next print sale, it is challenging to dream, challenging to make art, challenging to live. It’s a challenge I signed up for knowingly and one I embrace. I don’t mind finding new income streams, don’t mind creative solutions, don’t even mind funding applications. But I do wish it was a little easier.
I wish I knew what comes next, but I don’t.
Some days that is thrilling.
Some days it is painful.
Bursts of income allow that pain to recede, and the excitement to take over.
That is why I made my van budget spreadsheet. I needed to know exactly what I have to spend down to the last penny. Now I can let the panic go and fall in love with my oven to be instead. Isn’t it cute?!
It is also why I created A Nomadic Rose. I wanted a place to share these thoughts, to talk about the challenges of an artist’s life, and to provide an income stream that helps cure the pain and panic. A Nomadic Rose has had a few new subscribers over the last few days. I want to say welcome and thank you for being here. It makes me so happy.
If you wanted to make me even happier and do something for my birthday, I have three requests:
Share A Nomadic Rose with others, free or paid doesn’t matter, the support is huge either way.
If you are buying Christmas pressies for someone who likes photography, please consider something from my print shop. Heaps of my archive available. If there is a photo of mine you like that you don’t see, or a size you want that isn’t listed, just message me and I can easily sort that out.
If you can, this holiday season, buy your gifts from artists and makers. Trust me when I say they all of spreadsheets or budgets or bank accounts that cause panic and excitement, joy and pain. Go to your local craft fair, pop into a local gallery, look online. Artists are everywhere, we make great stuff, and we could do so much with your generosity.
Tomorrow, I plan to spend my birthday at Tate and in Hepworth’s Garden soaking in all the inspiration I can, then it is back to my van budget and spending some of the money on my utility systems. Bring on the water, gas, and electrics.
Until next week…