Sometimes I stop and think about the fact that I’ve actually created my own dream job.
I get to spend my working days making art, experimenting with new ideas, photographing the beautiful place I live, collecting treasures from Shetland’s beaches and turning some of that inspiration into pieces that end up in homes all over the world.
It sounds pretty idyllic when I put it like that!
And in many ways, it is. I genuinely love what I do. But Sarah Kay Arts certainly didn’t become a successful creative business overnight.
Starting small
I started Sarah Kay Arts in 2017, without knowing exactly where it would lead.
Like most creative businesses, it started small. I made things, tried ideas, learned what worked (and what didn’t!), developed new techniques and gradually found my own style.
One of the things I’ve never struggled with is ideas. If anything, I have the opposite problem. My head is constantly full of things I want to make and try. I can be halfway through one piece and already be thinking about the next three.
Over the years that curiosity has taken my work in all sorts of directions, from resin seascapes and mixed-media artwork to Shetland sea glass jewellery, beach-find pieces, photography and lots of little experiments along the way.
Not every idea becomes something I sell. Some work, some don’t, and some lead to a completely different idea. That’s part of the fun of being creative.
There really is no overnight success
Social media can sometimes make running a creative business look deceptively easy.
You see the finished artwork, the lovely photographs, the parcels going out and the exciting announcements. What you don’t see are all the hours behind them.
Building Sarah Kay Arts has taken years of consistent work.
It’s been making stock when I’d rather be trying a new idea. It’s photographing pieces, updating my website, packaging orders, answering messages, delivering work, keeping on top of paperwork and doing the hundred other little jobs that come with being self-employed.
I’ve gradually built relationships with shops and galleries, developed my online business, taken part in exhibitions and shows and grown an audience of people who genuinely enjoy following what I create.
None of that happened because of one lucky break or one viral post. It happened little by little.
Creating the job rather than finding it
I think that’s perhaps the thing I’m most proud of.
I didn’t find my dream job advertised somewhere. I created it.
I’ve taken the things I’ve always loved – art, the sea, photography, beachcombing, Shetland and making things – and gradually found a way of turning them into a working life.
That doesn’t mean every part of my job is exciting. There are still invoices, accounts, emails, packaging and days when my to-do list seems to grow faster than I can tick things off! But even those jobs are part of something I’ve built myself.
And I think that’s very different from the idea that you need to discover one perfect career that’s already waiting for you. Sometimes your dream job is something you have to invent.
Hard work makes more possible
I’ve also learned that being creative isn’t enough on its own.
Running a business takes discipline, organisation and a willingness to keep going when things aren’t happening as quickly as you’d like.
I’m naturally very organised, and I think that’s one of the reasons I’m able to fit so much into my days. I usually have several different things happening at once, and I’m always thinking ahead to what needs made, photographed, delivered or finished next.
People sometimes ask how I manage to get so much done. The slightly boring answer is that I plan!
Creativity might provide the ideas, but organisation is what gives me the time and space to actually do something with them. That’s probably a subject for another blog…
If you have an idea of your own…
I would never tell anyone that following a dream is easy.But I would say that you don’t necessarily need to have everything figured out before you begin.
Start small.
Try things.
Learn as you go.
Don’t be discouraged because someone else appears to be further ahead. You rarely know how many years of work happened before you discovered them. And don’t assume that success has to happen quickly for something to be worth pursuing.
Sarah Kay Arts has grown enormously since I started in 2017, but it has grown because I’ve kept showing up, kept creating, kept learning and kept coming up with the next idea.
Nearly a decade later, I still have far more ideas than I have hours to make them. And actually, I hope that never changes.
Because somewhere along the way, without really noticing the exact moment it happened, the little creative business I started became my dream job.