SHAE’S CAREER MAPPiNG PROJECT

What is this?

Being an artist is so elusive. The way people become a “successful” artist is even more elusive. This step by step guide will map everything I do in 2023 to try and make sense of how it happens.

Starting from 1 January 2023, I’m going to be sharing EVERYTHING I do in my attempt to make it as an artist. Each day, I will note each task, no matter how big or small, that I carry out that is related to my practice.

What will be shared?

  • Insight into how I organise my practice

  • Full access to my live application tracker (so you can see if I was successful or not)

  • Full copies of all my applications to reference for your own practice

  • Details of interviews, opportunities and my processes (if I am successful for any of the things I apply for!) *being hopeful that 2023 will be my year!

  • Things I read/listen to/buy or any other small tasks that I feel contribute to my practice (tiny things like Linkedin posts or more conversational things like meetings I set up with other artists or trips/gallery visits that I feel benefit my practice

What’s the point?

It might be completely pointless in the end, but that all depends on how my year goes. This whole thing might look like it’s coming from a place of pure self-indulgence, but let's be real, isn’t most of being an artist?

But what if it does works? What if I’m super successful and this is the year my career skyrockets? It might be fun to look back on, and it might help you to see an example of how it’s done by documenting my journey trying to be a full time artist.

If it doesn’t work and I don’t achieve my goals, then maybe you can spot where I went wrong… the flaws, the mistakes, the missed opportunities. This is purely an experiment, so we can look back on my year together in 2024!

How do I access this project?

This is a Patreon exclusive project. You can access the project from as little as £1.50 a month. We’ve never really done this before and made an entire project *exclusive* but we really wanted to give our incredible patrons something super duper special. It feels weird not making this completely free but I hope you can understand the amount of work that goes into running J&J (which we do on a voluntary basis) and that if we want to do bigger and better projects, we’re gonna have to try and ensure our work pays the bills!

This is what the homepage of the project looks like! There’s gonna be so much to look through and I’m literally SO excited !!!!

The pièce de résistance!!!! My LIVE application tracker database 🥵

And also another cool feature is the Diary section! This is where I’ll note down each thing I do for my practice, big or small! As you can see I was too busy redesigning the website you’re currently on at the start of Jan to do anything….

Each of these Diary entries will have a bit of context and some notes from them so you can keep track of what I’m up to!