Where were we?

Last year, before the whole world plummeted into the surreal timeline we find ourselves in right now, I had decided and declared that I wanted to build a creative business and work for myself some day.

Here’s what I said then:

…As I round the bases to 40 and I look back on a youth spent trying to climb a career ladder that, ultimately, led to nowhere (thanks, corporate media!), I have to remind myself: I have to try to do what I love. The other stuff doesn't matter.

So my intention is that 2020 will be a year spent in service of my dream. The first order of business will be putting clearer shape to the dream. I like to make lots of different things in lots of different styles, so how do I figure out which niche to spend the bulk of my time cultivating? How do I find the sweet spot that joins my joy and interests with actual long-term commercial viability? Because I want what I make to become more than my side hustle. I want it to be my hustle. I want to make relatable art that creative, bookish, funny, witty people see and think, "Oh shit, I need that."

It’s so weird to read that now, knowing what happened just two months after I wrote that. A tornado hit Nashville and not only demolished structures and lives sickeningly close to people I know and love, it sent my life into a tailspin. My full-time job as communications director for Hands On Nashville ramped up enormously for the tornado response and pandemic response, schools closed, I started working from home and Holden started having “school” from home, and everything changed as we adjusted to pandemic life.

The dream stalled.

Some time that summer I lost the spark. I wasn’t creating anything. I was lying down a lot and watching the news. The police brutality, the racism, the absolutely terrifying run up to the election. It was a dark time. And I couldn’t make a damn thing except what I needed to make for my full-time job. I felt very low.

I got lower when I got pregnant and miscarried that fall. I ended up in the hospital with severe abdominal pain and, soon after, I had surgery to remove a big chocolate cyst on my one remaining ovary that was twisting after the miscarriage. By the end of the year I was exhausted but not even really clear on just how spent I actually was. Then some idiot blew up Second Avenue on Christmas Day (also my birthday) as I waited for my kid to wake up to open presents. I had to shift back into work mode to help organize our disaster response communications. What was meant to be two weeks of blissful, hard-earned time off turned into two weeks of hard, complex work about an extremely traumatic event for our city. I didn’t have cell service for days. Then in March, South Nashville flooded and hundreds of families — many of whom are New Americans and undocumented — lost their homes and belongings. We ramped up our disaster response again, and put on a big flood cleanup event. I had just had eye surgery and the extended work hours and screen time made my recovery unnecessarily frustrating.

Something finally snapped. In April I felt a burnout so acute I couldn’t even describe it. I was so tired. My nerves were entirely frayed. I felt like a wrung-out sponge. I had nothing left to give. My periods had become irregular and were coming every 16 days. My therapist urged me to find a new OB and the new OB ordered bloodwork and learned that I was suffering from iron-deficiency anemia. I started taking iron pills and started feeling more energetic, but I realized I had to take some time off work, and not just a long weekend. I thought about trying to take a sabbatical. Was that even possible? How about taking FMLA, even though I work for a small nonprofit and they don’t technically have to offer FMLA coverage (they do, because they are a good org)? I finally settled on taking two weeks, coming back for a week, and then taking another week off for a vacation we had already had on the books. My boss graciously agreed that I should take two weeks off (and ended up doing the same for herself a month or so later, which I think is fantastic because she had had a hell of a year too).

It took me a day or two to decompress and stop thinking about work stuff, but on day two or three I picked up my iPad and drew something for the first time in weeks, months, I can’t even remember. It felt good to make something again. It felt weird too. But it felt right. That week I realized I didn’t want to keep putting off the thing I said I wanted all those months ago. Yes, a whole lot of life had happened and thrown me off track, and we were still very much in a pandemic, for god’s sake, but I still wanted to do the thing and I had actually, once I looked back at what I had somehow continued to do over the year, checked off or made progress on literally every single thing on my checklist from 2020:

✅ I'm taking some online and IRL courses about starting a business.

✅ I'm getting mentorship from real-life and online folks whose input has already been eye-opening and inspiring.

✅ I'm learning and growing and being intentional about my path every day. That includes artistically — building skill and style — but also in the realm of marketing, accounting, planning, and running an actual business.

✅ I'm planning a shop overhaul and some new types of products.

✅ I'm working on setting up a Patreon creator account where I'll share exclusive products with my supporters.***

✅ I'm figuring out what Eyedot Creative means going forward. Up to this point it has meant "whatever random thing I want to make that any number of random people may or may not be interested in" but in the wise words of some marketing genius, "if you're talking to everyone, you're talking to no one." Who do I want to talk to? How do I make what I want to make but find the people who care about that and grow that little garden into something big and lush?

So even over the lowest year of my life, I had been making progress on that dream. Even though I didn’t realize it at the time.

Those two weeks off, I made a bunch of stuff and I got LOTS of ideas. Inspiration and the desire to create flooded back into my brain like I had turned on a firehose. I realized again, for the millionth time, that MAKING STUFF IS IT FOR ME. And I had to wonder: What would happen if I actually poured my entire heart and soul into running my own creative business, just as I had poured my heart and soul into every job I have had so far?

My time at HON has been so challenging but so wonderful, in large part due to the other humans it has brought into my life. But it’s time for me to give this dream of mine a serious chance by putting real time and energy to it. I want to give it the spotlight. I need to take all I have learned throughout my many career twists and turns and carve out something totally unique and workable for me, my life, my heart, my brain. The thought of that is incredibly exciting to me. And scary! But I’m pushing through the fear.

So I am leaving HON in September and going full time with my art and design. I still plan to volunteer with HON and, hopefully, create content or graphics if they need them, on a contract basis. I’m so grateful for the time I’ve had at HON and for the friendships I’ve made and the impact our team has had in Nashville.

Which brings us to … here’s what’s next for me:

• Continue building Eyedot Creative’s e-commerce brand as a place to buy fun cards and gifts. My plan is to continue growing on Etsy through the holidays and see what things look like in January.

• Be a vendor at some local pop-up markets, art shows, festivals, etc. I’ll share news on upcoming events soon!

• Start selling wholesale and getting Eyedot Creative products into shops around the country.

• Take on art commissions, freelance design and content creation gigs, and consulting clients — something I didn’t have the time or energy for very much over the past year! (Click here to learn more).

• Hell, maybe I’ll even write more! (Don’t worry — everything won’t be as long as this. Ha.)

The journey to get to this point has been long and rough. And I’ve got a big ol’ lump of fear in my throat about taking this risk and what it would be like to not just fail, but fail spectacularly. But I also have to remind myself that it is OK to imagine myself succeeding too. And that there will be many days where I will feel success and failure all rolled up into one big burrito of Complex Life Shit.

And you know what? I’m here for it. Thank you for being here for it too. It means everything to me.

Lindsey

*** My Patreon was short lived but I’m considering overhauling and opening it back up. Stay tuned!