Christmas has been put away for another year, and I can no longer use ”distractions that need to be taken care of” as an excuse to not get down to work!
As the years tick on by, I've become increasingly aware that I really enjoyed the actual design and painting process, but so much of what I do revolves around social media, accounting, marketing and so forth... none of which I find particularly inspiring.
My personality is one that tends to stress out easily when I have too many different things going on, and I struggle to really enjoy the creative process when I have a mountain of things on my desk that need to be taken care of.
One thing was checked off my list of things that needed to happen, this week our web domain was renewed for another year. It's a small thing, to be sure, but it still took up a little bit of real estate inside my head.
I also have to find time to update the primary website with a New Year's message, and then we have to start shopping around for events that we could potentially attend as vendors this year, so that we can put them up in a calendar format on aforesaid website.
I have been doing a little bit of "office" work this week, mostly to do with sorting all my finished pieces into the three sales categories I want to work with from this point forward: one set of stones that will be for sale on Amazon handmade, another set — the biggest one — that will be my Etsy listings, and finally a group of the older and less admired work that will be in my eBay shop which is sort of my "clearing house."
It's not as simple as it looks because the number of these items will require a new photography, and perhaps a little bit of price adjustment as well.
It's funny — and a little bit sad — how people expect to buy art for the same price as it was 10 years ago, even though they live in a world where every other thing we buy has doubled in price!
Onwards...
Another project for this year is to try to figure out some way to kick a little life back into my Patreon initiative. I started my Patreon account many years ago, and at one point it was actually doing well enough that I was collecting about $140.00 a month, but since then it has just sort of fizzled away. I think I have exactly two supporters left and I really need to do better.
As I've said before, a lot of artists in this day and age make more money talking about their art than they do actually making and selling their art. I can't say that I'm super fond of this approach, but it seems to be one of the more successful approaches to being an artist, in 2025.
Of course, at some point I would really like to be able to just sit down and experiment and see if I can come up with some new design styles other than just keeping on "recycling" ideas that I have done similarly in the past. I realize that since the stones are hand painted no two are ever going to be exactly the same, but it's still nice to feel like you're working on something new.
Certainly, there's a limit to how much you can actually change the fundamentals of a mandala design... but I still like to pretend that I can!
Meanwhile, I'm still giving some serious thought to taking on "The 100-day Project" one more time, perhaps starting later this month... which would allow me to do it and finish before somewhere gardening season sets in in earnest. I do recognize that in 2024 project related posts accounted for over 2/3 of all my Hive activity. Even so, the jury is still out on that one.
Regardless, it always seems like there's a lot to do, and I end up feeling a little overwhelmed because I also have two other businesses to consider, as well as my blogging here on Hive.
Well, at least writing about it helps get some of the ideas out of my head and on to the page that releases the pressure a little bit!
I appreciate you coming to visit and please do leave a comment if you feel so inclined!
Thank You!
If you enjoy painted rocks, do check out The Hive Rocks Project and help spread the word about Hive, while also being creative!
Because I am trying to make some semblance of income — a part time living, even — I now add this footer to all my posts, in the hope that someone, somewhere, might decide to take a further look at my work, and perhaps consider supporting independent art.
Thank you, in advance, for your consideration and support!
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2025.01.07 AS-TXT-304/274