Being a graduate student gives me an in for asking people for interviews. Over the last fourteen months, out of ten to twelve inquiries, only one person declined an interview. In this time of digital communication, sitting face to face (even virtually through skype) and talking on the phone allows me to get to know my interviewees on a more personal level. A lot of people I interviewed were flattered that I cared to ask questions about them at all. I’ve been honored that so many people are willing to share their experiences, knowledge, and advice. This process of interviewing people has been very enlightening. Many of my ideas have been reinforced and broken down by listening to others with different expertise. I wish I knew long before graduate school that I could learn so much about my interests by interviewing people who also cared about my interests. 

So, my recommendation to anyone looking for answers about how to be an artist is to talk with other artists and creative professionals.

Don’t be shy. Ask them to sit down and have coffee with you. Ask to visit their studio and then show up and ask more questions! I think artists by nature are naturally curious. Use your curiosity to your advantage. Discover what it is that challenges them in their everyday practice. Find out what their path to success looks like. Explore their studio space like a dectective. Inquire about their techniques, their work flow, and their experiences with exhibitions. 

And don’t limit yourself to those within your interests. Some of my most useful interviews have come from people who I initially thought would be outside my areas of interest. I once interviewed a non-profit director who worked with homeless populations. I discovered they had a program that brought homeless men to their organization to create art. Through his story, my interviewee helped me see the importance and benefits of art creation for this underserved group, an idea that stays with me as I dream up areas for growth at Worthwhile Studio.

Finally, if you embark on the challenge of interviewing others, be sure to honor time and expertise with gratitude. A timely, handwritten letter is most  memorable. Try to write it as soon as your interview is over to capture the feeling the interview created for you. If you are not the letter-writing kind, then be sure to send a follow up email expressing your gratitude. One way of extending gratitude for an interview is by offering to connect your interviewee to something (another artist, an article you read, or a relevant resource) that might be beneficial to them. Your interview should reveal any potential resources they may find helpfu. Just remember, if you offered any references, connections, or introductions in the interview, be sure to follow through with those promises. 

You can find all manner of tutorials on the internet for interviewing people. My recommendation is to do your research on the person you intend to interview. Write your questions based on who they are and what they are passionate about. Ask for their permission if you plan to record your conversation. Let them know who will hear it if at all. Whether you are recording or not, listen intently so you can follow up with pertinent questions. Don’t interrupt. And be yourself. 

So, I knew the financial class was going to kick my “a double s,” but I also knew this was a weak area for me in my other business endeavors. Artists, let me tell you, making financial statements is both tedious and rewarding. My first pass at the Income Statements and the assumptions therein was lost due to a power outage. The second round was respectfully tossed out by my professor as well, just plain wrong. My ego had to take a few days to rebound, and after a whole lotta whining and “I don’t wannas,” I finally sat down to the tedium and discovered the rewards of creating (mostly) accurate assumptions about my business activities.

The rewards came in the kind of clarity that gave me a glimpse into the future financial standing of the ideas I have been diligently developing over my graduate studies in entrepreneurship. Being a keenly visual person, averse to numbers and math in general, I had no idea that numbers could create an image of a company. But indeed they do, and I feel as if I have been baptized through fire trying to learn this lesson.

I cannot say I would drop my dreams of being an artist to pursue financial planning, but I can say I have a newfound respect for those who relish spreadsheets, balancing acts, and crystal balls full of excel equations. In the future, I will certainly employ someone with those proclivities to help me make sense of my business’s financial picture.

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

As artists, makers, and creative entrepreneurs, numbers are huge part of success. If you are not keeping track of your finances, then you cannot measure your success (or failure) effectively. And what is the point of pursuing a creative business for it to essentially become a non-profit company that disappears into the ether?

Embracing the  titles of Artist, Maker, and Creative Entrepreneur require you to also embrace the power of understanding finance. You are no longer allowed to say, “I’m not good with numbers.” Many artists joke that they became creatives because they are so bad at math. I’ve said so myself. However, if the age-old concept of the starving artist is getting left behind, then why not dispose of this cliché about artists being bad at math as well! If you have any success at all as an adult paying bills, car payments, mortgage, or at the very least feeding your dog, then you are not as inept at numbers as you believe.

Understanding the rules of finance is really more about learning the language of finance than about being good at numbers. So, for your education, I would like to discuss some finance terms and how they relate to an arts-based business. Let’s start with the most basic financial statement, the minimum requirement for any arts-based business.

The Income Statement

The Income Statement is one of the most useful tools in your financial toolbox. As an artist, you will use the income statement to review and manage your financial activity, manage your financial resources, and create effective budgets. The income statement uses your sales  and expenses to understand your profits or losses in your business. In it’s most basic form, the income statement is:

Sales – Expenses = Gross Profit/Loss

Artists should always keep detailed track of their sales. The income statement can help you keep track of the kind of sale, such as a print or an original piece, whether the purchase was made with a cash, credit, or some other form of payment, if the sale was through a gallery, online, or private, and any other valuable sales information.

Expenses should also be carefully monitored. There are many ways an artist can create expenses. Expenses can be incurred along the way from creating the work, to selling it and shipping it. Understanding where your money is being spent in the process is important to creating strong profits. Many times sales are adequate, but spending is too high.

Finally, subtracting your expenses from your sales will give you the gross profit or loss of your business activities. However, you must understand the terms gross and net.

“Gross income is the amount that a business earns from the sale of goods or services, before selling, administrative, tax, and other expenses have been deducted. For a company, net income is the residual amount of earnings after all expenses have been deducted from sales. In short, gross income is an intermediate earnings figure before all expenses are included, and net income is the final amount of profit or loss after all expenses are included.”

There are a lot of different expenses that must be considered after finding your gross income, and many of those expenses vary from state to state and what kind of business you have created (i.e. LLC, Corporation, Sole Proprieter). Just know that your gross profit is not the same as your net profit, which means you cannot go spending all of your gross profits.

The value of the income statement is in the details. You can analyze the sales and expenses to better understand where your business is succeeding and where it can use some help. The income statement will help you file taxes, apply for loans, grants, and other funding, and even track your performance and sales trends from year to year. The income statement is one of the most basic statements that can help you monitor the health of your business, so start tracking those sales and expenses today!