Financial Literacy for UK Creatives
Creating for Profit or Fun?
I’ve been struggling a little with how I define myself. And also, I’ve been trying to move away from labels. Why am I trying to define myself? Not entirely sure but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently about my life’s purpose.
I am a qualified accountant. That is my profession of choice. I recently did one of those ‘what job should I do?’ tests that students normally take. I answered a series of questions and the results were anything classed as ‘Administrator’ and the list of jobs included Accountant. I wasn’t sure if that was depressing or not.
I am also an artist. Whilst I have sold a few pieces here and there over the past few years…I have not really focused on building a career in this field in the same way as my finance career. However, I know the associated numbers for selling my art and how to look after the finances side of a business - well…inside out. I should do - I was involved in my parents’ business ever since I was a child as well as working in corporate finance for about 100 years (or so it seems).
In 2020 I took a career break (I left my job of ten years on purpose during the pandemic) and I decided to just be really artistic. I took an abstract painting course…which also focused on setting up an art business. I painted about 300 paintings (mainly small to medium size and a few large canvases). As I was going through the course, I had the numbers to hand always. If I create this painting or this drawing, well the materials are £x and it took me x time and if I were to do time based pricing it would be this…but art is about value so I should look at value based pricing in which case I would charge £y amount… you get the picture.
I got so involved in working out the monetisation that the joy of creating for the sake of creating was destroyed. I weirdly enough also missed working in finance so eagerly started looking for a new job. That was four years ago. I’m now rethinking things. Questions like ‘how can I add value to the world?’ keeping popping up in my mind.
I had a coaching session with the wonderful Michelle Rohr who told me that the brand is me. It’s rare to have someone who is an accountant also be an artist and that I bring a unique view to the world. She encouraged me to blend the different areas of my life, my expertise to offer something different. One of the things was helping creatives with their finances.
On social media I come across many artists who are struggling with the finance side of things…some are completely under charging. I realised that can add some value to artists/creatives when it comes to finance.
I have created a free mini course to help UK Creatives with Financial Literacy. It is called ‘Financial Literacy for UK Creatives’…details can be found here: