Today Uni work has thrown somewhat of a curve-ball at me today, only just discovered today there is an essay due tomorrow! So had to temporarily drop all my set plans for Hire an Artist while I worked on the essay. So with the essay, the lecture and the commuting time, that's 5/6 hours already eaten up out of the day, add an extra 2 hours if you include the time it takes to commute back home.

What really kicked me in the guts though was when I realised I forgot to bring the files I need to use when I promote to artists! Man! I had this technology in front of me, easily x10 times more powerful than my laptop at home, yet I couldn't use it because I stupidly forgot to bring my USB over for the files. *Sigh*

So when I finished the essay and got it printed and ready for submission, I did what work I could and then left to go home. Before I go into what I did when I got home though, what I did at the Center involved firstly replying to all e-mails. I was speaking to a rather interesting artist, who actually turned us down because he didn't want to "Piss off" the galleries that represent him. I know the obvious answer to the question I'm about to ask; Why would people that represent an artist be upset that the artist is getting more work and gets to do what they love a lot more? The answer in case you was wondering; Money. But he said that the galleries and collectors always watch out on the interest if the artists are trying to get work outside of their connections. It sounded incredibly dictator-like to me, resembles that of a prisoner or something along the lines of limited freedom and chains.

This is literally the first time I've heard this so I definitely won't allow it to colour my view, nor will I ever generalise or judge based on this one opinion. But that was some rather interesting feedback that I got, makes me wonder how many more artist's opportunities are being suppressed because they want to maintain existing relations. Is he an oddity or is it commonplace? How many artists that I've emailed haven't replied back for that very reason. I won't think too much on this, there's so many other things to be dealt with.

So the other task was preparing a pitch for the competition, only got half-way through this though because the presentation is incomplete and I got hungry, and with that I packed up my things and started my long journey home! No point sticking around, after all I can get all that done at home, with food! (How marvelous it is to work in a place with a fridge in the next room)

But I digress! I got home and the work began, first researching for business bank accounts. I did this a while back but never got the account, but after advise from my partner I went through the process again. It looks like I'll be choosing NatWest, who offer 2 years free day-to-day banking. My problem with banks is that they're never truly nice, they only seem nice because they want your money and (In my opinion) will happily put you in the firing line if it means getting their money. And in my situation this means what are the sneaky charges/fees they include with this 'free' 2 year day-to-day banking account? I couldn't find much information but I'm leaning towards getting a NatWest account after advise from an experienced accountant, I'll pop into a bank when I pass by. But it's not on my top list of priorities.

Next was adding more tasks to a Gantt chart and splitting the workload with my partner, took maybe 10 minutes. Afterwards was going to be promoting to more artists, however going over the tasks I remembered my partner was skilled in writing and marketing content, I figured he could greatly improve the marketing email I use to promote to artists. So I put off the promoting and gave my partner the task to sharpen up the e-mail, which will improve the success rate of the emails and thereby we would grow a lot faster.

Doing this stemmed into a conversation with my partner alongside the other tasks I did in the meantime, I'm going to discuss the conversation though because it's the more important of the two. As the remainder of the day went on we discussed many things but I began to learn I'd given him too much to do and he couldn't handle the workload. I already had a feeling this was happening when he never even got back to me about the contract we had finished. So when he admitted it I understood and took the workload off him, the presentation task and the email improvements. I'll handle these tasks tomorrow.

As time goes on and the more work that piles on (And the less time in the day I get), I get a feeling I'm becoming distant from planning, that I'm running on a day-to-day mode. And that's greatly true to a certain sense, it's only recently that once I got my life back in order that I got some small plans together, but that barely translates into action. To elaborate on this, I've made plans to improve social networking and develop a community of supporters, this resulted in the idea of 'Artist of the day' which has had a good start and looks promising. But in reality the only action this translates to is saving an image, a name and web link, making a record and then scheduling the post. That's it.

On a short final note, I'm thinking of improving the Artist of the day campaign by splitting the image with one side the artwork, the other a picture of the artist. That will definitely improve the campaign because it makes it more personal and people connect more. It's more work because it involves image design but I think it'll be worth it.

If you're an artist reading this blog and would be interested in being featured as an Artist of the day, please e-mail me at info@hireanartist.co

Bring on the work! I can take it!