E13 | When You Can’t Create: How I’m Repurposing My Art During a Health Setback

In this episode, I’m sharing a personal update on my health and how it’s been affecting my art business. Recently, I’ve been dealing with chronic pain and reduced mobility, which has really forced me to slow down and rethink how I operate.

I talk about the practical steps I'm to keep things going while I navigate this new reality — like focusing on repurposing existing artwork instead of pressuring myself to create something new, and giving older pieces new life in different formats.

I hope this episode feels supportive for anyone else going through something similar.

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Links & Resources

Links below may contain affiliate links. I get a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you for supporting this podcast!

• Episode Mentioned: E10: Diversifying Your Art Business for Sustainable Growth

• Episode Mentioned: E12 Is Your Art Business Prepared for Emergencies?

• My favorite print-on-demand company - Printful

• I use Shopify for my art website Parima Studio

• Learn 7 different ways to create passive income from your art - Passive Revenue Streams for Artists

Transcript

[00:00:14] Hello and welcome to another episode. So this one is gonna be a little bit more of an update with a mini episode baked in. If you've been listening to the previous episodes and been following along from the beginning, then you know that it's been a little while since I last posted. I was releasing. A new episode about every two or three weeks, and it's been more than that since I posted my last one. 

[00:00:42] And the reason for that is because I've been unwell, I started developing very rapid onset. Symptoms that have affected my mobility and overall health. I'm not really gonna get too much into it, but I am experiencing a lot of pain everywhere, along with a boatload of other really unpleasant symptoms that have made it increasingly difficult to work or even do

[00:01:09] everyday task, like washing the dishes or sometimes even holding my phone is too much for my body right now. So I don't know exactly what I have. I have some suspicions, but I don't know just yet. And so I am waiting to get some more concrete answers. And while I'm doing that, it kind of puts my business in a bit of a limbo. 

[00:01:30] Because I can't operate at the same rate that I was before. I can't do the things that I was doing before, and it feels like such a weird coincidence that the last episode that I published was about how to handle your business during an emergency. And everything that I talked about in that episode is pretty much what I am doing right now.

[00:01:56] And so what I plan to do with this episode is just kind of expand on that previous one and show you what I am doing in real time. So these are the actual steps that I am taking in my business as I'm dealing with chronic pain and reduced mobility. So as I mentioned before, I'm operating at about 20% speed, which I have to admit is a bit frustrating for me because I am a person who can get a lot done in a day.

[00:02:25] I tend to have a lot of energy for the things that I'm excited to work on, and then suddenly being unable to do anything involving my hands, which, you know, we use our hands for everything. So as you can imagine, I can't do a whole lot right now. 

[00:02:40] and that has been a mental hurdle that I am still working through. My priority right now, obviously, is to rest and get better. I don't want to rest because I want to work on all the projects and things that I had planned for the year, but all of that has to wait. And it also seems fitting that I recently just read a quote in a book by Rebecca Yaros, not the Empryean series, it was another one of her books that said.

[00:03:09] “If you don't take the time to let your body heal, time will take it from you”. And that has been stuck in my mind ever since I read that. And so I'm like, okay, this is a sign from the universe telling me that I need to take the time to actually rest and figure out what's happening with my health so that when I am able to, I can

[00:03:30] progress. So right now it's not a season of growing. It's not a season of progress. It's a season of being still. This has made me appreciate so much what it means to feel normal and what it feels to be able to just like go on a whim and do what it is that you wanna do.

[00:03:50] Like, suddenly you feel inspired and you get to create art because you feel that. But right now, I have a lot of inspiration, but I can't really act on it. And so, like I said, that has been something that I am working through mentally and emotionally, to get through that. Now, as far as business goes.

[00:04:08] This does affect my business, not being able to operate to the same degree. Right now I'm not able to make a bunch of new art like I normally would, because I can't do something for more than an hour, or even working on my computer, like just typing, using my mouse like that is way too much for me right now. 

[00:04:29] So after about an hour, my body's like, yeah, no, you're good. You need to go lie down now. So some days are better than others than I do try to take advantage of those days, but even so, it's still greatly limiting my work time. So what I am focusing on during the season of my life is to utilize this idea of repurposing my art, which basically means that I take my existing artwork, all of the artwork that I've already created, and offer it in a new way or present it to a new group of people or an existing group of people who have never seen it before. 

[00:05:08] So you can also think of this as diversifying the use of your art. I am taking one of my images and using it to sell art prints, make new products or license it to retailers or the hospitality industry. And it's something that I've always done in my business, but now I'm really doubling down on this idea and hyper-focusing on my existing work.

[00:05:31] That way, I don't feel pressured to make any new art, but it still gives me something to offer my audience and my existing connections. So how does this work exactly and what does it look like practically? 

[00:05:45] So one of the first things that I did was that I looked through all of my existing artwork and then saw which ones I could either repurpose or make into a new product or submit to an existing partner or gallery and get it in front of more people

[00:06:00] I currently work with about four different gallery/partners, and I've talked about these relationships in episode 10, which is all about diversifying your income. And I also talk about it in my guide, Passive Revenue Streams for Artists, if you are curious to learn more about that. 

[00:06:16] But for my galleries and partners, I made little mini collections and submitted one for each. And to give you a quick overview, these partners in galleries sell or offer my art to their clients on my behalf.

[00:06:31] This means that I get a commission anytime anything sells or is a part of a project. And this is super ideal for me right now because it means that I don't have to be the one actively selling, and I don't necessarily, again, need to make new art 

[00:06:47] And then they essentially do the selling and marketing and all that stuff. And while I don't exclusively live off of this money, it does contribute to my overall revenue. So the more pieces that I have with them, the more chances that I have of something selling, and it's a really great way to utilize the high-res images of my older artwork. 

[00:07:09] And like I mentioned before, I have tons of artwork. I've been doing this for over a decade, and surprisingly, or maybe unsurprisingly, some of it I've never used before or shown it to anybody, and it's just been sitting there collecting virtual dust on my computer, hard drive.

[00:07:26] If you've ever been scared or nervous about submitting older artwork, don't. When people fall in love with the work, they won't care when it was made.

[00:07:34] You know, unless it's exclusively stated in someone's submission guidelines. But otherwise, it's totally fine. I know that sometimes to us, it feels like “Who would want this? It's so old!”, and you may even feel a little bit embarrassed by it because your style might have changed over time, or just has a different feel or look to it. 

[00:07:54] But just remember that it's not old to the people that you are presenting it to. This could be the very first time that they're seeing it. And if they have seen it before, and it was a long time ago, they probably already forgot about it. You know. Not in a bad way, it's just we consume a lot of things in our daily lives, and it's easy to forget something that you saw once, like eight years ago. Don't be afraid to submit older artwork. 

[00:08:21] And so I sent. My partners and galleries and emails saying like, “Hey, I have these available. Would they work with your assortment?”. Obviously, I used much more professional wording, and two have already accepted, and I'm still waiting to hear back from the other one. So these submissions may not immediately bring me cash, but they will set me up for the future.

[00:08:41] So if six months from now I'm still unwell to the same degree or worse, which hopefully that will not be the case, I'm almost scared to put that onto the universe- I will get better! Then I know that I have art out in the world that is working on my behalf. 

[00:08:57] Okay. Continuing with the themes of repurposing older artwork. While I was browsing my archives, I found some animal motifs and floral patterns that I had done 10 years ago. They were super popular for a while, but I eventually took them down because I felt like they had been up for too long and decided to focus on other artwork. 

[00:09:19] It's been many years since these animal prints have seen the light of day. So I decided to bring them back, but in a new way. And what sparked this new way was that I had done a collaboration before with a company, and we did mugs with my abstract artwork, and my audience totally loved them. So that gave me the idea to turn the animal and floral patterns into mugs. 

[00:09:44] And to make this even easier on myself, again, I have limited mobility. I have limited time to work. I am using Printful, which is a print-on-demand company. I've used them before. I love their quality. I really haven't had any issues with them, and I love that they seamlessly integrate with my Shopify and even generate

[00:10:05] product mockups that I can use for my listings. So this makes the whole process of creating a new product and launching it so much easier. 

[00:10:15] They also have Photoshop templates that you can use to create the products. So with the templates, you quickly pop in your art, you upload it to the website, and you know, you write your descriptions, you set your prices, all that jazz. All of that took me about a week to do, but only because I was working for about an hour a day or so. 

[00:10:37] If I wasn't in chronic pain, I could have knocked it out in about two days. But regardless, it was still easy to set up. And now I have a new lower price product that I can offer to my audience through my emails, Instagram, and Pinterest. And another reason why I decided to do the mugs was because no matter how many I sell, I am not the one that has to make the product, package it, or ship it.

[00:11:05] And that is the kind of support that I need right now. 

[00:11:09] All right, so the third thing that I am doing is that last year I submitted our work to one of my partners, and they didn't pick all of the pieces. So I am going to do a slow release of the ones that weren't chosen and put them up on my website. Doing a slower release. Instead of releasing them all at once, will give me something to talk to my audience about. 

[00:11:33] I plan to space out their release every three weeks or so. So between the new mugs and the slow release of new artworks, this gives me a content buffer of about three or four months, maybe a little bit longer. 

[00:11:48] So again, I'm not having to create anything new. I'm just focusing on my existing artwork to help me get through this time. And the very last thing that I am doing, which is not related to repurposing artwork, but I think it is still important to mention, is that I'm being very mindful of my cash flow, how much money is coming in, how much money is going out, even though I employ a lot of passive marketing strategies. And licensing is also

[00:12:21] a sort of passive income strategy. Not being as active in my marketing or other business-related tasks may affect my revenue down the line. And so it's better to act a little bit conservatively right now and just be aware of how everything is flowing.
[00:12:39] Which I guess is good advice to have at any point in your business. Always being mindful of your cash flow. 

[00:12:47] Alright, so the takeaways for this, if you are in a similar position, is to, one, listen to your body and be honest about what it can or can't handle at the moment. And if you're not chronically sick but are experiencing some major life event, you can still ask the same questions. What can I handle in this moment? How can I give myself a little extra care or rest? 

[00:13:17] And two, determine how that will affect your ability to create new artwork and or handle business operations. Three, be resourceful. Can you repurpose older artwork in a new way? Can you bring back older prints? Older originals that have never sold or products, and give them a refresh, give them more attention, style them in a new way?

[00:13:41] Talk about them in a different way. Present them in a new light. Do you have connections that you can reach out to that can help you get more of your art out into the world? 

[00:13:52] And then four, lean into simplicity. What is the easiest way to do something or determine if even certain tasks are necessary at the moment? What is the easiest marketing plan that you can implement right now? What is the easiest way for you to create that product? 

[00:14:09] What is the easiest way for you to photograph this, or share it, or make a video of it, or present i,t or put it in a portfolio, keep it simple and cut out the overwhelm. 

[00:14:24] And the last one is mind your money. So especially if you're doing this as a business and not a hobby, it's always just good advice to keep an eye out on how much is coming in and going out, and then make adjustments or plans if you need to. 

[00:14:40] Okay. So those are the things that I am doing right now as I am working through this chronic illness, focusing on getting better, and sort of navigating my business with very limited mobility and time. And

[00:14:54] despite not being able to do the plans that I had dreamt of last year or at the beginning of the year. I still feel pretty good about where I am headed because I have a plan and this idea of repurposing my art and focusing on the existing work that I have and giving it some extra love and letting it shine because I think maybe we let things collect dust for a long time and then we forget about them. And

[00:15:24] there could be somebody out there that that's like the perfect piece for their house or their home or their life, where they find like some deep connection with it and it's just been hiding in your drawer, or in my case, it's been hiding in my computer hard drive.

[00:15:37] So I feel pretty good about this

[00:15:40] plan. It gives me something to work towards. It gives me something to do, and I can just let everything else go for right now. Alright, that is it for me. I hope that you have found this episode helpful. If you did consider subscribing, and I hope to return with another episode again soon. I cannot make promises of when that will be.

[00:16:04] It really depends on my health. But again, I really do hope to return soon. Thank you so much for listening, and I will see you over in the next one.