The Freelance Transition
I was recently checking out Emma Kisstina/Kristina Hultkrantz’s Skillshare classes and freelance life pie charts and decided to share a bit of my journey with this as well. Going full-time freelance was not something that happened overnight. It’s been a gradual transition over a few years to change the slices of pie in order to suit and support the vision that I have.
Here is what two years of semi-full Freelance life has looked like for me:
Australia does their financial and tax year from July to June, so that is why these charts start and begin from those dates. It’s the only data I have. It’s a bit tricky to get a real sense for 2020 because I had two months of freelance gigs lined up in China and Japan which were cancelled. In-person teaching was cancelled for a few months as well as hospital visits with Inscape Tasmania. I was extremely lucky to have other options.
Here is a little bit more about each category:
Supportive Income/Keshet: I worked at Keshet Design in Hobart for several years. I started with about 4 days a week and gradually reduced my days and hours as I gained traction in other areas. At the end of 2019, I officially resigned. It’s important to have a supportive income while on the journey towards freelance so some of the financial pressure is reduced. I was lucky enough to have a supportive income as a creative art director so I used my skills in that area of my life too.
Teaching: Before moving to Hobart I was a full-time teacher in a school. My pie chart was about 90% teaching and 10% freelance and gigs during the Summer vacation. When I moved to Hobart with the intention of eventually going freelance, I serendipitously found an opening at The Nolan Gallery where a former teacher of theirs had just moved to New York City. I initially taught three sessions per week with some workshops and things here and there. I still teach there with reduced classes and love the students that I get to interact with regularly. It’s an important part of my pie because it is SOCIAL. Freelance life does not often incorporate dealing with people face to face.
Inscape Tasmania: I could categorize this as a freelance gig, but I feel like it deserves a category of its own, especially because I have regularly worked for this organisation for a few years. This work feeds my soul and is an important part of the pie chart. It’s also important to recognise that this is a paid job and not volunteer work. I only do this once or twice a month and it’s just the most wonderful job an illustrator could ever have.
Books/Advances/Royalties: This includes anything involving books from work for hire situations, advances for book contracts, and royalties for published books of the past. It’s certainly hard to predict this category each year, but it’s the one I’ve been focused on growing. I work with a wonderful agent, Claire at Painted Words, and without her, I would not have received such wonderful offers. This piece of the pie significantly grew when we sold my graphic novels in a three-book deal. Not only does it grow the chart, but it means that this pie piece will stay for a few years as I create the rest of them.
Things that are so insignificant that I wouldn’t include in a chart: Sales from my website, Redbubble, Society6 and Spoonflower where people can buy work of mine on various surfaces and objects.
Anyway, thanks to Emma Kisstina Illustration/Kristina Hultkrantz for inspiring me to do this. Anyone else out there pie charting their freelance life? I would love to see it.
Self Motivating During a Global Pandemic...
2020… The year I went FULL-TIME freelance. Wow, what timing!
The pandemic has changed my life completely, but not in the most visible ways. At the end of 2019, I was transitioning into full-time freelance work, so typical office life was already gradually disappearing. I was riding on the high of starting to work on my dream project, a graphic novel that would take up most of 2020. I moved into a local co-working space in February 2020 as I’ve learned in the past that I don’t do my best work at home. By mid-March, I was back in my home studio where all of the reasons that working from home doesn’t work for me escalated. Feeling isolated, stuck, and separated from my mom was of course never the plan.
I think everyone went through some kind of baking phase. I busted out Lucy Knisley’s book, Relish, and tested out the “Best Chocolate Chip Cookies” recipe among many others.
I was also scheduled to go on tour with Terrapin for all of April and May in China and Japan for the children’s theater show that I was a part of in October 2019. I would be working on my graphic novel during the day and drawing live in the children’s show in the evenings. With all travel and shows being cancelled worldwide, it was, fortunately, the only big financial hit for me.
During the lowest times in the pandemic, my life still looked the same from the outside. I was still working on my huge graphic novel project and a picture book which I felt extremely lucky to have been contracted for in 2020. The huge project, Big Apple Diaries, takes place in New York City before and after September 11, 2001. It was surreal to try and capture the essence of the city recovering from that shock at the same time the city was suffering again two decades later. A lot of the same themes were there - fear of the unknown, lost loved ones, and the strange mutual understanding that everyone has. Somehow the diaries I wrote when I was twelve have financially supported me twenty years later when the world is in crisis.
Small panel in Big Apple Diaries that suits the mood, watching the world crumble.
Self soothing activities during lockdown included Animal Crossing and an ongoing Catan tournament with our housemates who live downstairs. (My score has greatly improved since this photo was taken.)
I honestly don’t know how I would deal with 2020 without dogs…
Starting full-time freelance in 2020 has been intense because it feels impossible at times to self motivate when the world and everyone you know is hurting in some way. I somehow found myself in 2020 with a contracted job to do, without kids to worry about, with universal healthcare, extreme covid restrictions which led to zero covid around me, food on the table and much more to be extremely grateful for. It’s the non-visible stuff that has changed - the wondering, worrying, news refreshing, social activism-ing, and more. I started collecting some images in a “Pandemic” folder as a form of memory keeping in hopes that one day I can come back to make something out of it. At the moment it is still too ongoing and raw. My mom is still in New York in her own covid fatigue chaos.
My sketchbook reserved for “travel only” had to be used at some point this year when we were finally able to “travel” within Tasmania again. We drove four hours north to Derby, a mountain biking haven. Living on an island closed off to the rest of the country and world has been a blessing and a bit scary… mostly a blessing though.
A pretty great place to be isolated.
Binalong Bay Area, Tasmania - another pretty amazing place to be isolated.
In many ways, living in Australia this year has also put me in an incredible advantageous point to self-motivating for book work. In June I was able to move back into my co-working space and life has mostly resumed to relatively normal capacity. The worries and fatigue are still there as I look to all of my friends and family in the US. I am honestly not sure if either of my books would have been completed if I was still stuck at home and worried at the same time. For all of the other sensitive artistic souls teetering on the edges of poor mental health in the best of times, I don’t know how you do it!
Making a Theatrical Debut in China!
Wow, where to begin recapping my recent trip to China… 4 weeks, 4 cities, 24 shows performed, 5 or 6 workshops.
It all started when I was hired by Tasmania’s amazing Terrapin Puppet Theatre Company to be a part of their production of You And Me And The Space Between. This show is part play, part picture book/animation with a moving set controlled by a puppeteer. Terrapin describes it best:
“From the mind of Australia’s most accomplished children’s playwright, Finegan Kruckemeyer, comes a tale of wonder and invention that is brought to life in unexpected ways. Storytelling, choreographed projections and live drawn animation explore the plight of refugees fleeing environmental change through the eyes of a child.
Step inside a picture book with an artist and storyteller, amidst a paper set that is cut, ripped, patched and manipulated live to create a world of play.”
Live drawn animation - that’s where I came in!
Photo by Dean Stevenson right before we opened the first show of the tour.
The main cast was made up of four people on stage and some very important off stage characters:
Dean, the tour director, composer and live musician
Nicole, the amazing narrator from Shanghai
Rosie, the fabulous puppeteer controlling the set
Me, illustrating live from the ipad which is projected on stage
Simon (seen below) , the doer of all things including the very important stage lighting
Julien and Regina (seen below), our tour managers who we could not survive without
Celebrations in Zhengzhou above after opening night.
This photo was taken during the first show in Xi’an.
Considering I have never been on stage for anything since middle school (where I was a nameless role on stage with one line in Annie), it was pretty scary at first. Luckily we were performing for mostly children and hearing them laugh and gasp in the audience made this an extra special experience for me.
Performing this in China means that the entire show was in Mandarin! So literally all of our cues were in Mandarin too. Luckily I had an earpiece for other cues. It was pretty amazing to witness the poetry, humour and emotional side of the story translating seamlessly from the English version.
We performed in a diverse set of cities and venues! First we were in Zhengzhou’s Little Dreamer’s Theatre which hosts children’s performances from around the world for their regular members who are treated as family there. It was really a special venue and getting to know the staff and kids made us feel extra welcome.
Next, we traveled to Suzhou! It’s the Venice of China with artists sketching everywhere, a history of amazing embroidery work and much more! We got to explore a little bit on our days off. I really enjoyed that many people were wearing or renting traditional outfits from different time periods as they strolled around the museums and shopping areas. Nicole rocked her Tang dynasty outfit with us tagging along asking for translations every 5 minutes. One particularly special moment was when we stumbled into a Tea & Whiskey shop where the owner brewed us a special 20+ year old oolong tea. We watched him transfer the water from vessel to vessel until the tea finally made it into our tiny porcelain cups.
The venue we performed in was massive! There were museums, movie theatres, gigantic broadway show theatres and more inside. One of the small joys was having real coffee available right outside of our small theatre.
When we walked up to this the first time I think we were all in shock. Especially me, being an introvert accustomed to working in a silent solo cave.
Above photos inside and outside of the Suzhou venue.
Then we got on another train and went to Xi’an! It’s hard to decide which one was my favourite city on the trip, but Xi’an is definitely up there. On our days off we checked out some of the sights and ended up in artistic visual delight heaven! Ink brushes, calligraphy, handicraft galore! My eyes and brain hurt from absorbing it. Plus we went to see the Terracotta Warriors which was just unbelievable to process.
The venue we performed in Xi’an was spectacular. Walking up to it for the first time was definitely another shocking moment. Like are we performing in a palace?! China certainly knows how to light up an entire area with a million lights and this was one of them. The Shaanxi Opera House is just one of MANY buildings in this long strip of museums, theatres, shopping malls and more.
I had to grab some aerial views off of the internet because my photos just do not do it justice. Our hotel was in walking distance so it was wild to absorb this in between shows and do some people watching.
For week four we were sent to Urumqi, all the way in China’s northwest Xinjiang region. Although it ended up being a week of workshops instead of doing the show, it was an eye opening experience for all of us. Xinjiang borders many other countries/territories including Russia, Tibet, India, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. WHAT?! With all of the different ethnic groups it was definitely a different atmosphere. There was a lot to process and some difficult issues to witness, but putting that aside we had an amazing week.
The Helen O’Grady Drama School hosted us during the week, taking us to shows and amazing meals. (Scroll down for food highlights later.) We did workshops with kids loosely based on the show and it was wonderful meeting so many families and the super hospitable staff at the theatre school.
After a month in China we flew to Shanghai to begin the long journey home. Our one night in Shanghai just so happened to be on my birthday, so it was pretty special. It was hard to believe it was all over! There were a lot of laughs over the month to recap with funny translation fails, spa visits, different customs, interesting foods and more. Hopefully I can return to China one day and spend a bit more time in Shanghai!
Rolling in my 31st birthday in a spectacular way!
And now, a very quick recap on what I will miss most of all… the food. Oh the noodles and dumplings… and things I never knew of or tasted before. So cheap, so delicious…
Until next time, China!