It took me this long…

…but I realized that I don’t really lay out the artistic plans that I consistently keep in my brain - ha! Oops. That was a rather significant oversight. How about we fix that today?

When I lay out my plans each year,
I divide them into a few categories:

• Passion Projects - i.e., what I don’t get paid to do; what comes out of my pocket — these generally manifest as long-term, multi-year projects that take a lot of planning

• People-related/Traffic goals - overall website and social media pageviews and connections; attracting not just the number of Patrons, Donors, and Mailing List Subscribers to my website that I would like, but also the kind of people who vibe with the type of art I make and the kinds of stories I tell; the overall number of clientele who hire me for services & events

• Financial goals - self-explanatory, mostly - but this can include grants that I apply for, contests that have prize purses, as well as the financial outcome of the services I am hired for. In other words - what can I do to reach the kind of income required for me to leave my full-time job and enter the professional art world on a permanent basis without free-falling into burnout

• Training goals - what kinds of new things do I want I learn this year; what kinds of education do I choose to invest in; what, if any, new kinds of media do I choose to learn and branch out into? This also includes the kinds of books I invest in for educational purposes

• Website goals - how does the Carrie Hill Creative website remain relevant, interesting, easy to use, and attractive to the people who visit?

• Exhibition/Publication/Residency plans - do I want to make another book this year? How many exhibitions will I aim to get into? How many publications do I want to try for, and what kinds of publications will they be (magazines? blog features? online collectives? bus stops? billboards?) - in other words, how will I choose to share my work with the public?

It’s a lot to think about, and it takes lots of time.

But it is worth it.

Stay tuned, and I’ll break these down for you in future posts!

Are you a fellow creative with big plans? Tell me about it in the comments!