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New Site + New Blog
It's exciting times over here at artbymags.com. If you haven't visited the website recently, I've restructured and redesigned the whole thing. It was time for an update, and some major changes.
The new site is a Wordpress site, with more emphasis on the blog aspect. It is no longer a shopping cart/e-commerce site, either. Over the past few years, my online sales have moved almost exclusively to Etsy, so I no longer see the need for a clunky shopping cart system on my site. There are still image galleries of all the items that I make on the site, and those will automatically be updated as I make new things.
What this means, however, is that this particular blog - blog by mags! - will no longer exist. So for those of you who have subscribed to this blog in a feed reader or via email, take a minute to click on over to artbymags.com and use the links in the upper right-hand corner of the page to subscribe to the new artbymags blog. The blog will simply be the home page of the site, and will now cover more than just my art-and-craft life - everything from local news, politics and events to whatever I'm thinking about on any given day. (Don't worry, for those of you who only want to read about my arty-crafty life, you can filter through all the posts via the dropdown menu in the lefthand sidebar.)
So. Thanks for reading this blog and keeping up with me, and I hope you'll join me over at the new blog.
The new site is a Wordpress site, with more emphasis on the blog aspect. It is no longer a shopping cart/e-commerce site, either. Over the past few years, my online sales have moved almost exclusively to Etsy, so I no longer see the need for a clunky shopping cart system on my site. There are still image galleries of all the items that I make on the site, and those will automatically be updated as I make new things.
What this means, however, is that this particular blog - blog by mags! - will no longer exist. So for those of you who have subscribed to this blog in a feed reader or via email, take a minute to click on over to artbymags.com and use the links in the upper right-hand corner of the page to subscribe to the new artbymags blog. The blog will simply be the home page of the site, and will now cover more than just my art-and-craft life - everything from local news, politics and events to whatever I'm thinking about on any given day. (Don't worry, for those of you who only want to read about my arty-crafty life, you can filter through all the posts via the dropdown menu in the lefthand sidebar.)
So. Thanks for reading this blog and keeping up with me, and I hope you'll join me over at the new blog.
Existential Crisis
Sorry I've been so absent on the blog. First it was the holidays and we had visitors; then we went on vacation up north to Louisville for a week. Since then, I've been scrambling to get back into the swing of my life. And, um, having an existential crisis.
What could I possibly be having an existential crisis about, you ask? Well, about making a living. Work. Making money. How I want to go about doing that, and the fact that I need to figure it out real soon. I don't have the luxury of time to wallow around in it for long, as this holiday season did not reap excessive financial gains as in years past.
The gist of it is, I am basically someone who never figured out what I wanted to be when I grow up. Sure, I went to college, but I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life going in, and it wasn't all that much clearer coming out, despite the nifty degree that still sits on my mantle and the rather lengthy list of "experience" on my resume. Complicating that, of course, is that I have sort of never really "grown up," per se, and it might be argued I've actively fought against the idea pretty vehemently. (I'm told it's part of my charm, but I think it's a character trait frowned upon in the workforce, no?)
Not that I want to give up the crafty life entirely. Not at all. I love crafting and making things with my hands. I love coming up with t-shirt designs and printing them. And I love trying to push myself further and further to come up with new and interesting ideas of stuff to make, and ways to express myself. It's just the business end of this life that I'm struggling with.
Sadly, my experiment in doing this more-or-less full time seems to have failed, at least in terms of making enough money from my creative endeavors to live on. While I still consider my crafting life a success - I know folks love and appreciate the stuff I make - and will continue to do it, I've come to a financial roadblock that I cannot ignore. I gotta get a job.
So... I've been writing and sending out resumes, pouring over the want ads and various online job posting sites. I've been brainstorming on ways to monetize my skills in PR, publicity, social media networking, etc. But I'm pretty burnt out on the freelance writing and music journalism life - after all, I've been doing it pretty consistently since I got out of college. The whole reason I switched gears to go full time on the crafty biz was in hopes of being able to phase out of the writing gigs, which I have largely done, except for my one music writing gig with Curve.
So yeah, I don't really know what kind of job I'm looking for. But frankly, at this point, beggers can't be choosers. Maybe something brainless that pays a low wage but that doesn't have a lot of responsibility would be a good thing for me for a while, to clear my head and just make some money, dig myself outta some holes. But maybe something more "professional" that builds on my skillset would be better, would re-engage my brain in something different but exciting. Something social media related? Grassroots PR? Event production? I dunno. It's overwhelming.
For now, I'm gonna keep looking at everything out there, picking up temp/one-off/seasonal stuff as it comes up and hoping to piece together enough income to pay my bills. Markets are slow this time of year and I just don't think they are a great risk for me, but I will continue to update my Etsy shop with new stuff until I have everything in my current inventory listed. Hopefully things will pick up soon.
Thanks for listening, y'all. And if you know of any job openings you think I'm a good fit for, lemme know. I really am a good, hard worker when I have to be. I've got a LinkedIn profile that is basically an online resume; feel free to pass it around.
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What could I possibly be having an existential crisis about, you ask? Well, about making a living. Work. Making money. How I want to go about doing that, and the fact that I need to figure it out real soon. I don't have the luxury of time to wallow around in it for long, as this holiday season did not reap excessive financial gains as in years past.
The gist of it is, I am basically someone who never figured out what I wanted to be when I grow up. Sure, I went to college, but I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life going in, and it wasn't all that much clearer coming out, despite the nifty degree that still sits on my mantle and the rather lengthy list of "experience" on my resume. Complicating that, of course, is that I have sort of never really "grown up," per se, and it might be argued I've actively fought against the idea pretty vehemently. (I'm told it's part of my charm, but I think it's a character trait frowned upon in the workforce, no?)
Not that I want to give up the crafty life entirely. Not at all. I love crafting and making things with my hands. I love coming up with t-shirt designs and printing them. And I love trying to push myself further and further to come up with new and interesting ideas of stuff to make, and ways to express myself. It's just the business end of this life that I'm struggling with.
Sadly, my experiment in doing this more-or-less full time seems to have failed, at least in terms of making enough money from my creative endeavors to live on. While I still consider my crafting life a success - I know folks love and appreciate the stuff I make - and will continue to do it, I've come to a financial roadblock that I cannot ignore. I gotta get a job.
So... I've been writing and sending out resumes, pouring over the want ads and various online job posting sites. I've been brainstorming on ways to monetize my skills in PR, publicity, social media networking, etc. But I'm pretty burnt out on the freelance writing and music journalism life - after all, I've been doing it pretty consistently since I got out of college. The whole reason I switched gears to go full time on the crafty biz was in hopes of being able to phase out of the writing gigs, which I have largely done, except for my one music writing gig with Curve.
So yeah, I don't really know what kind of job I'm looking for. But frankly, at this point, beggers can't be choosers. Maybe something brainless that pays a low wage but that doesn't have a lot of responsibility would be a good thing for me for a while, to clear my head and just make some money, dig myself outta some holes. But maybe something more "professional" that builds on my skillset would be better, would re-engage my brain in something different but exciting. Something social media related? Grassroots PR? Event production? I dunno. It's overwhelming.
For now, I'm gonna keep looking at everything out there, picking up temp/one-off/seasonal stuff as it comes up and hoping to piece together enough income to pay my bills. Markets are slow this time of year and I just don't think they are a great risk for me, but I will continue to update my Etsy shop with new stuff until I have everything in my current inventory listed. Hopefully things will pick up soon.
Thanks for listening, y'all. And if you know of any job openings you think I'm a good fit for, lemme know. I really am a good, hard worker when I have to be. I've got a LinkedIn profile that is basically an online resume; feel free to pass it around.
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