During a recent visit my toddler nieces ate Cheerios straight from the box like velociraptors — with no side-effects from sugar (second ingredient). These fun, commercial, personal side-projects help me relax when I freak about today’s economy — hopefully Keebler will have a vegan line and artificial milk with sugar free cereal will be commonplace — in the meantime….

The hero of this blog Dr. Seuss advertised mosquito repellant. Standard Oil kept him alive during the Depression. When Theodore Geisel finally published children’s books late in life he was still known by fellow illustrators as “the Flick guy.”

saw that someone left a comment on that Life of a Freelancer link: “you can always say ‘no'” – umm, not if you’re trying to pay the bills.I find artists that claim not to care about money usually have parents who pay for that attitude. And not if you’re trying to keep your two kids from starving & not if you’re trying to keep from getting evicted from your rented home, etc. Exactly. It’s not always possible to pick & choose, especially during a recession. The flip-side is there is an opportunity cost in working with asshole clients…the worst part about shit work is it takes away time from giving 110% to good clients. 1 of 2: There are a lot of people doing great creative work that give advice like turn down a client that offers a rotten deal 2 of 2: most people handing out advice on being a creative pro are NOT 100% freelancers-they have a job that pays the bills
—- Another: At the start of my career, I was often accused of spending more time promoting myself than I did focusing on my art. While it might have been 50/50, or 60/40, or 40/60, this was probably true. I did ALOT of art. But also a LOT of business. And never slept. Now, that I have a crew of amazing people that deals with my schlepping, hauling, calling, invoicing and emailing, I’m 90% art time. Conclusion? Devoting yourself to your art is a fucking luxury, and no one should ever criticize a young artist for being a scrappy hustler. Cause the business stuff- someone has to do it. Before you’re making enough bank to support an assistant or gallery, that person will be you. Me and @KimBoekbinder have talked about how the lie fed to artists is the same at that fed to chicks… that if you’re good and pretty and nice enough, some man or gallery will sweep you off your feet …and if they don’t come, well it’s positively vulgar to get out of your tower yourself, you whore It’s something I think about alot now- how much having cash and a crew frees me to do crazy, ambitious dream projects. The stuff I got criticized for doing when I was starting out still gets done. But it’s considered less vulgar to pay someone else to do it. Considering hustling and business stuff vulgar is just another way of saying people who want to transcend their station are vulgar.