The “whys”…
When I first started this consulting practice, I was often asked why. Since recently naming my practice and publishing a new website, I’ve been fielding new questions about what my practice is (a platform for private and group consulting; teaching; and advocacy for art workers) and what I do (offer guidance to art workers; teach workshops and classes; curate exhibitions; write essays; and advocate for art workers). These questions, in tandem with the season, are putting me in a reflective mood, so I went back to my earliest newsletters to revisit the thoughts I was sharing in the initial months of my practice. In October of 2019, I published a list of reasons why I started my practice. These “whys” are still so relevant to me today, so I'm sharing them again here as a complement to the “whats” that sometimes eclipse them. For sticklers who may have read this years ago and remember it, you might notice I’ve revised the text a bit and re-ordered the list :)
So, why did I start my practice? At the time (back in 2018), more and more of my friends and colleagues were coming to me with questions about how to navigate the opportunities and challenges they were facing in their work and careers, so I started my practice in response to an increasing need I saw in my community. Now that I’ve formalized my work into a set of services and referrals have spread the word, my reach extends beyond my immediate community. In addition responding to the need, the "whys" that motivated me then remain at the core of my work:
+ To use what I know from decades of professional experience, research, and my intuition to empower artists and creative small business owners to be what they want to be, not to merely conform to received cultural norms of success.
+ To redefine what success is for myself and to help others find out what success on their own terms looks like, feels like, is.
+ To work with artists in an unmediated way. By working independently, I can operate in a way that draws on my experience and opinions more fully, unmediated by an organization I’m working for, and therefore representing.
+ To help artists see their studios as businesses that support their art, and to help businesses (artists and otherwise) change the way business and work are done in a more holistic sense, so that art businesses can build new worlds and inspire business owners in other fields.
+ To help creative small businesses see the big picture. I want to help business owners articulate their vision, purpose, and goals; generate ideas that can help them evolve in a holistic way; and align their work with their values.
+ I love to work, but I don’t like having a job. Working contributes to the meaning, purpose, and shape of my life. It is rewarding and inspiring. Having a job makes me feel like I will never have enough time, enough money, enough health insurance, enough retirement savings, and on and on, keeping me in a perpetual scarcity mindset that continually burns me out. Not to mention the commuting, cubicles, office politics, competition, gender pay gap… Having my own business is more like being in my studio than going to a job. It's a practice. It’s really hard, but the challenges are rewarding beyond remuneration.
+ To be free to work with clients, to work on curatorial and writing projects, and to teach, as opportunities arise, needing no one's permission but my own. I want to be more accessible to and connected with my immediate community, and I want that community to be ever-deepening and ever-expanding. Developing a practice defined by radical locality is my way of being and making the change I want to see in the world.
What are your "whys"?
