Between 2019-2021, I blogged about the creative process and the business of being an artist. I did my best to cram-jam my posts filled with useful tools, tips and hacks and straight-up honesty from my own point of view.
My focus was figuring out how we can overcome our creative blocks, actually finish our projects and earn money from our art. I also shared the work of Black and Global Majority artists.
Take a look around or see the posts by categories: creative process, self-producing, artist life hacks, artist series. I hope you find something useful here.
Theatre animals, performers, creators of live performance I’m talking to YOU.
Do you feel frustrated because while you’ve got the artistic skills, ideas and desire to share your work with audiences and earn money for your art, you find yourself totally flummoxed as to how to make it happen?
Paula Varjack is an artist working across performance, video, participation, spoken word, and sometimes all of these areas at once. During the past six years she has created performances, installations, sound and video pieces, utilising training from performance making, technical theatre and filmmaking.
Read MoreHave you ever felt the maddening frustration of banging at a door and not being let in?
Maybe it’s the door of an agent, a sector of your industry, particular company you want to work with, a festival where you want to present your work or an artist you wish would bring you onto their team, etc…
Given our social distancing and the forecasted economic future, I want to stay on my soap box, singing the virtues of creating a solo show.
In my last post on this topic, I wrote about how solo shows give us agency, allow us total creative control and freedom and are a cheap conduit to international touring.
This week, I want to touch on three more ways going solo can benefit you as an artist and business person.
Based on what I learned working on my book, I’m offering you 5 hot tips for editing your writing.
Maybe you've just completed my 14-Day Creative Quarantine Challenge and you want to begin shaping your raw material? Maybe you’re about to start a second pass on a script or a story?
Or maybe you’ve got to write a funding application? Or you’re refreshing all the copy on your website?
These tips can be applied to creative or professional writing.
why & how I became a solo show creator & performer
In the autumn of 2007, I returned to Toronto from my first ever professional acting job (outdoor theatre on the farm theatre). I’d landed an agent but I was not having a good time. I was frustrated by my lack of creative control:
• I was bombing my auditions to play high school students in poorly written TV series or to sell toothpaste in commercials.
Read MoreAs a recovering self-critical perfectionist — also a Virgo Ox — I work hard, I pride myself on my attention to detail and I find making mistakes really embarrassing.
While I was chastising myself about a mistake I’d made with my mailing list, I realised this might be a useful thing to talk about.
How do we acknowledge our mistakes, take responsibility and move on?
Read MoreIf you’re an artist who creates your own projects and takes on the lion’s share of the tasks when it comes to raising the funds, writing the funding applications, promoting and sharing your projects with audiences…
… you’re like me. And admin is bane of your existence.
You know the sinking feeling that comes with putting it off. You’re familiar with the rage at losing days to its boring details. Oof.
To help you complete your necessary admin efficiently, so you can get on with your art, here are 8 tools I use regularly.
