Small wins and some news!
Hello everyone!
Today I am feeling happy and excited. Over the last week I’ve had some meaningful small wins along my journey to working for myself full time.
Individually these are each good and meaningful, but collectively I think these provide me with a lot of hope and energy that what I’m trying to do will be possible and meaningful in the medium term, and provide me with enough of a living to continue. And that’s really what success is: being able to support myself and continue doing these things and living with more freedom.
A quick note - before I started writing this I was at the physio and my physio and I often have long discussions about how what we want in life is quiet opportunity. He was talking about how he just wants to pay off his house and then work less and walk his dog more, tossing the frisbee and enjoying the day. What a perfect vision. I’m not much different.
Earlier this month I had to do some Tall Poppy admin and with the sun shining I walked into the city (about 40 minutes away), sat in the State Library and enjoyed getting things done there. After finishing I had some lunch and wandered home, again savouring the rare winter sunshine. That’s the sort of achievable joy that I’m really grateful for.
Anyway - what are the small wins?
Well - first of all a gallery has agreed to exhibit my Dingo work in 2025. This is a huge win for me and one of my measures of success - it was a goal I wanted to achieve by the end of 2024. The gallery has been really supportive and I’m so keen to just absolutely smash this exhibition and really make something amazing.
Second - some paid work has been confirmed: I’ll be teaching a workshop in Perth in September and have also been asked to talk at a local Uni about publishing. It’s really lovely to see some small payments come through and get that going. Thank you to Duncan and Perth Centre of Photography for helping me with this.
Third - I was accepted to be at Polycopies book fair in Paris and Singapore Art Book Fair later this year. I was able to attend both last year and it was excellent to sell books overseas, meet other publishers and learn a lot. Still waiting to hear back from 3-4 other fairs, but the plans are coming together :) - attending these really helps get my sales goals happening!
Fourth - I’ve confirmed some more teaching later this year in Melbourne, which I’ll share in due course - but a really good win for me as well. Each workshop I teach is about 60% of what I’m aiming to earn in a month - so a big win each time.
Fifth - Tall Poppy Press has some new products - details below. We've not launched anything since March so it’s really refreshing to be able to shout it loud and proud: WE HAVE A NEW BOOK! COME HAVE A LOOK!
This is our tenth publication and man oh man am I super psyched to have a tenth book out - what a tremendous win and it’s so exciting.
Tomorrow I’m off with my girlfriend to New Zealand - it’s the last holiday I’ll have for a while and, in a lot of ways, things get a bit more serious in August. I’m both keen for the trip and keen for the next steps where I move away from roadtripping and readjusting and into working a bit more. I’m super excited to share the journey with you all as well.
Finally, just to wrap up - a reminder of things to draw to your attention as well!
Tall Poppy Press has recently released a new book: Big Bug by Jake Nemirovsky. This is our tenth book that’s been published. You can see it here and purchase it here.
Each purchase goes a huge way to supporting our work and I’m so joyful any time someone buys a book off me. It just fills me with such happiness.
We have a launch event on the 3rd of August at 1pm at Hillvale Gallery in Brunswick - I’d love to see you there. Free and open to all :)
As mentioned, I’m teaching a workshop in Perth on September 7th and 8th - if you’re WA based and want to learn about book making, publishing, book binding and leave with your own handmade book please click this link to register and sign up. Questions warmly welcomed :)
That’s it for this week - thanks for coming along with me, I hope your week has been going well and you’ve got a great weekend coming up.