It's pretty obvious that in our culture creative pursuits are not usually rewarded finacially to the same extent other activities are. With rare exceptions, an art photographer, for instance, will not earn the same as an engineer. With that in mind, think about whether it is worth someone's time, effort and investment to try and make a living in some artistic craft if that person also has the ability to get a job in what might be considered a more mundane field. How much is job satisfaction worth? Is it even possible to earn enough doing, say, knitting or making hand-crafted jewelry or designing 3D models to support a reasonable lifestyle?
Another element to consider is how much business acumen is required to make a go of a creative-based occupation. Outside of academia there aren't very many jobs out there where an artist or creative writer can spend all their time creating or improving their skills without having to think about salesmanship or bookkeeping. Is this a problem for our civilization? What can be done about it if it is?
Hi, my name is Kat, and I created this little niche of Locals.com to have a conversation about making and creativity. As you might surmise from the title, I tend to be a bit messy in my making, frequently starting several projects at once and maybe not quite following through on all of them. Still, overall, more of them get done eventually than might if I tried to stick to just one thing at a time. What's your experience? Do you have to clean the house (or room, or desk) before you can get started? Does a blank page terrify you? Is chaos necessary for creativity, or does it prevent it? Let us know what you think, and maybe share a few things you've made or are working on, or even just thinking about.
The electric power has been out for abiut 24 hours this time, and it's snowing again. This is so abnormal .... South Texas only gets snow flurries every few years, but this is the 3rd "major" (for Texas) snow this year. And for it to last so long is also way beyond the usual. Tomorrow is supposed to be 44°F though. We can only hope!
A friend of mine in Houston with no experience in snow or winter weather has been calling me regularly the past few days asking for advice. She's living in a mother-in-law apartment with electric heating/hot water, a gas stove. With electric out of service, and her apartment poorly insulated, and temps outside of 16 F, she had to get somewhere with power/heating.
Running a gas stove without ventilation for heating is a prescription for carbon monoxide poisoning. She also is hypersensitive to the smelly additive to gas and has her gas turned off.
She got in her Prius to find her car glazed over with ice, and no scraper, so I told her to run the car for 20 minutes with the heater on full. That cleared enough of her windshield (she has no ice scraper like many in the south) that she could get on the road. I warned her to plan her stops WELL in advance, 2-3 times sooner than normal, and to pump her brakes to avoid skidding/sliding. If she got into a slide, turn toward the direction she's ...
