The experiment is over
Hello everyone,
We’re one week from Christmas and my experimental six months off is officially over.
For the few of you who started following this newsletter recently, here’s the abridged story: my former boss overspent our work budget and at the same time my contract finished at my old job, so she turned around and said ‘I can’t afford to keep you, bye’. It was abrupt, hurtful and upsetting.
Instead of applying for more work I decided to have a go at being a full time artist, arts educator and publisher, just for six months. I wanted to see if I could do it.
Initially I set myself the following goals:
Sell 500 books
Teach four workshops and have 2-3 organised for 2025
Secure one solo exhibition for 2025
My dingo project feeling finished
Some more writing gigs lined up
The point of having this time as an experiment was to learn that, if I worked towards these things, would I be able to earn a living and continue working for myself?
So let’s see how we’ve gone.
Overall, this six months has been fantastic.
I am significantly happier, well-rested, joyful and fulfilled. I used to experience significant existential dread about my career - I often felt like I was pissing away my one precious life doing jerk off work for a jerk off boss in a jerk off office OR doing very meaningful work with some great and some jerk off kids at the cost of health and happiness. I’d get to the end of each summer holiday and regret that I had to return to work.
I don’t feel those things anymore.
I feel good almost every day. To be sure it’s not easy and I certainly work a lot, but the work rarely feels laborious and I rarely feel as if I’m just wasting my time and I relish the lack of structure I’m afforded. I’m profoundly grateful every single day.
My girlfriend has noted how much more joyful I am and I’m constantly surprised how the freedom I have over my day leads me to small, mundane ways to feel better in my life. My sleep pattern has shifted slightly - I’ve never been the best sleeper - but I cannot think of a time I’ve had consistently better rest than the last six months. I think we can all appreciate what a total change that is: feeling less tired is immaculate.
Additionally, I’ve enjoyed being able to be more generous with my time. I’ve enjoyed doing lots of house work, helping friends out on weekdays, having meetings at odd times and being able to be more easily present. If it’s pouring I can easily drive my partner to work, if my Mum wants to drop something off I can have lunch with her, if an artist needs something done I can do it. I think, for me, being able to be there for people, easily, directly connects to a feeling of self-worth. In some ways I aspire to nothing more than to, in lots of small ways, help people.
Finally, it’s been rewarding - seeing my education business grow, in particular, has been really fulfilling. Planning significant business upgrades and spending enough time to turn a vague idea into a fleshed out idea into a plan into a better plan has been really exciting. Having a few small wins along the way has been reassuring and great.
However, with all that said I did not achieve all of my goals.
I did NOT sell 500 books - I sold 313 which is not bad. Releasing one fewer product than we expected meant that we were unlikely to hit this goal and I am 85% certain had we released a fourth book this year we’d have cleared 500. From the 313 I made a PROFIT of $8263.33 which is just over $26.4 profit on average. My target average profit is $25 so that’s awesome. Additionally, our Open Call was incredibly popular and brought in an additional $2400 so that’s pretty decent - over $10,000 profit in ‘sales’ for the 6 months. My goal for years has been to make $25,000 in profit from sales and, you know what, I’m in the fucking ball park and I’m getting damn close.
I SMASHED the workshops - teaching THREE workshops at Universities, ONE with a festival, ONE in Melbourne, THREE in Kalgoorlie and ONE in Perth. NINE total. I have also felt confident enough to lock in a studio moving forward to do more. In the first half of 2025 I hope to teach 6-8 workshops, I have dates lined up to work again in WA and am looking forward to new partnerships here. A friend recently told me he thought the workshop he attended was the best value and the best run that he’s been to. I really enjoy bringing my skills as a teacher to these spaces, it’s great, people respond well and I’m good at this.
I secured THREE exhibitions in 2025. A group show in March, a solo exhibition in May and a solo exhibition in December.
My dingo project is feeling finished! I have made a draft of the book and have been working with a designer. I have felt uncertain about how good this work is for a while, but actually turning what I have into a book has really affirmed the work for me. There are a few more things to photograph, and that’s ok.
I have NO writing gigs lined up. After publishing the article with Aus Geographic I pitched them EIGHT different pieces and they sent me a one line response ‘We’ll pass on these, thanks’. I’ll try again next year - I hope to write an article or two moving forward as I enjoyed it, it paid well and I learned a lot.
Overall I’m very happy with where things landed - I set some ambitious goals and achieved more often than not.
The parts of the experiment that didn’t go well were the expensive travel costs for too few sales. But that’s ok - we’ve dissected that, no need to revisit.
So - can I continue?
The answer is ‘yes, but I need to do some fill in teaching work’. Funding some of the projects I’m creating next year is expensive. It can cost $7-15,000 to get a book made - money I usually front (artists don’t pay more than 50% of the costs for books at TPP). If books sell well in their first few months I can quickly recoup the cash I put in, and then be in profit mode. Additionally the rebranding work isn’t cheap (but is good value).
It may have been possible to continue without much CRT work had my girlfriend and I not been hit by $6000 of aircon bills, $2000 car repair, $1500 hot water bills and $2000 electricity bills, but what can you do? Sometimes shit happens. We’re lucky that I had lots of savings and she’s working so these bills were relatively easily absorbed.
So I’ll need to spend the first half of the year working 3-5 days per week as a teacher as well as teaching workshops and pushing our first book hard! I’m so ok with that. I’m hopeful that the plans I have to ensure that I can continue WITHOUT extra work are solid, but I do need more time to get them off the ground.
In 2025, I have these aims:
a) Publish 4-5 books - sell 1000 of the new books and 150 from our back catalogue. Have each one pop off.
b) Sell out of Sunshine, Ambient Pressure and Site Specific (all of these titles have <50 copies left)
c) Launch a new website with significant branding updates AND a line of merch, sell out of our first run of new merch.
d) Run 15 workshops - a more professional, varied and expansive workshop program.
e) Spend February-May doing a lot of fill in teaching work
f) In June no longer need to do any more fill in teaching work.
g) Each of the three exhibitions are chances to showcase my creativity and skill as an artist - I want three exceptionally amazing exhibitions, great documentation and to really show everyone that when I am given an opportunity I push myself and it goes hard
h) Publish my own work and have the launch in Melbourne feel so fun and supportive
i) Be in a financial position to purchase a new to me car in 2026
k) Put SOME money into my superannuation in June, 2025.
So that’s where we’re at - I’m immensely proud of how well things have gone, the set backs have been real and the experience has had its ups and downs, but overall this has been a meaningfully rewarding time of growth and joy. I’ve found sharing this experience through this newsletter a really good check in point and I often find myself thinking throughout the week ‘how will I write about this?’. That question of helps me reflect and pushes me to examine thoughts and feelings in ways that become more constructive.
I want to thank everyone for reading, everyone who purchased a book, a workshop slot, shared what we did, emailed me back (thanks Mum and Wenona my two greatest repliers) or encouraged me. I’m very lucky to have your support and your attention.
What’s next? Well I’ll be taking a break for a bit over a month I think. It’s almost Christmas, and then I’m off in January.
At the end of January I hope to share concrete plans for 2025 - with the books we’ve got lined up. I’m having a ton of break throughs at the moment with a few of them and it should be really exciting to share that.
Additionally I want to share a bit about how doing fill in teaching has gone - I finally did a day of it. I’ve also taken on a publishing project about the Stolen Generation and I want to share some of how I’m approaching working with that artist, the community members and publishing something very moving and complex.
I guess that’s all a way of saying ‘hey, please stick around - I’ll still be sharing my thinking, processes, ups and downs’.
In the mean time, chuck me an email back if you’ve enjoyed this, have a lovely last week before Christmas and if you’re somewhere cold just know I’m jealous. Truly I am not a summer man.
Matt