The Autonomous Creative

By Jessica AbelBusiness Arts Careers

The Autonomous Creative episodes

February 02, 2023Are you exploiting your own creative labor? with Tara McMullin
“Self-actualization is not more important than feeding yourself.”
In this episode, Tara McMullin helps us understand why solving for your needs first is essential to running any creative business (with your humanity intact).
Tara is a writer, podcaster, and producer who used to be a business strategist (among many other things). But in late 2021, she pivoted to focus on her creative work. On this episode, we discuss Tara’s debut book, What Works: A Comprehensive Framework To Change The Way We Approach Goal Setting. Plus: how and why she left her successful coaching and membership business to be a writer.

More from the episode
What’s the Passion Paradigm, and how does belief in passion-driven work contribute to labor exploitation?

How the starving artist myth functions more like religious belief than you might expect, and what effect that has.

How acknowledging your limitations is actually the key to feeling more capable than ever.

How did an adult diagnosis of autism, and the emotional labor required to support her clients, play into Tara’s pivot?

What leads to chronic under-commitment, and how can we become less tied to validation and achievement?
About Tara McMullin
Tara McMullin is a writer, podcaster, and producer. For over 13 years, she has studied small business owners—how they live, how they work, what influences them, and what they hope for the future. She’s the host of What Works, a podcast about navigating the 21st-century economy with your humanity intact.
Tara is also co-founder of YellowHouse.Media, a boutique podcast production company. Her work has been featured in Fast Company, The Startup, The Muse, and The Huffington Post. Her first book, What Works: A Comprehensive Framework To Change The Way We Approach Goal Setting, will be released in November.

Connect with Tara
https://explorewhatworks.com/
https://www.whatworkspodcast.com/

Additional Links
Always On: The Hidden Labor We Do Every Day
Seven Simple Business Models
1 hr 17 min
January 19, 2023Life is more than an endless slog of tasks, with Sarah Von Bargen
Sarah Von Bargen was a highly productive blogger for 14 years, showed up constantly on Instagram, and had years of success on Pinterest.
Sarah also ran several online courses where she helped thousands of people learn to make small, but significant changes to improve their lives.
Using a strategic approach to happiness, Sarah recently mapped out a huge transformation in her own life, pivoting from online internet personality to digital marketing consultant.
On this episode, I’ll dig into what inspired Sarah’s pivot, her methodology for designing a sustainable life, and how she implemented those changes.

More from this episode…
Sarah describes how she became a public internet personality, what it’s like, and why she opted for a more private life.

Sarah shares her thoughts on social media, and why using it as part of your business model can contribute to burnout.

How did Sarah reverse engineer her life based on her needs, and when did she first start getting intentional about her happiness?

Why Sarah says she’s giving herself “permission for my career to be the least interesting thing that I’m doing.”

Sarah’s “Good Enough” timer, and how she stops herself from falling into the trap of perfectionism.
About Sarah
Sarah Von Bargen has consulted, strategized, and ghostwritten for hundreds of companies, bloggers, and entrepreneurs. Her clients include fashion labels, authors, life coaches, photographers, restaurants, psychologists, interior designers, and people who wouldn’t want you to know they have a ghostwriter. She’s written three ebooks, an e-course, produced and sold four calendars, and has a literary agent and an app in the works.

Connect with Sarah
Yes and Yes
https://instagram.com/yesandyesblog
https://www.pinterest.com/yesandyesblog
https://www.facebook.com/yesandyesblog

Additional links
How To Figure Out What Makes You Happy (so you can do more of it)
The Glorious Freedom Of ‘Good Enough’ + How To Find It
1 hr 5 min
December 29, 2022Embracing your limits in order to find creative freedom and fulfillment, with Oliver Burkeman
NYT bestselling author Oliver Burkeman has more than a decade of experience discussing topics like productivity, procrastination, and anxiety in his column for The Guardian newspaper, This Column Will Change Your Life. On this episode, Oliver talks about his game-changing new book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management For Mortals, his career path, how he came into the role of productivity expert, and the freedom of what he calls “a limit-embracing attitude.”

More from the episode
What are the added challenges of doing what you love professionally, in terms of productivity?

The importance of stopping, and how patience can help you reach the finish line more consistently.

Oliver describes his own system for finishing creative projects, and what productivity looks like for him.

Why learning to tolerate discomfort is essential to developing a healthier relationship with time and productivity.

Where do most people go wrong with time-management and productivity tools, and what can they do instead?
Connect with Oliver Burkeman
Oliver Burkeman’s bi-monthly newsletter: https://www.oliverburkeman.com/the-imperfectionist
https://www.oliverburkeman.com/
https://twitter.com/oliverburkeman

Additional Links
Want to get things done? Stop thinking, start doing | Oliver Burkeman - The Guardian
Why it pays to cut yourself some slack | Oliver Burkeman - The Guardian
Your new superpower: NOT trying to do everything | Jessica Abel
Endless to-do list? Here’s how not to waste your life | Oliver Burkeman - FT
1 hr 10 min
December 08, 2022Discovering your creative system (and the perpetual motion machine), with Austin Kleon
Austin Kleon is the New York Times bestselling author of a trilogy of books about creativity in the digital age: Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work!, and Keep Going. Before all of that, he'd been a librarian, a web designer, and an advertising copywriter. Discover Austin’s path to becoming a famous author, how he successfully navigated that pivot, and the vast web of influences that inspire his creative work and daily life.

More from the episode…
Austin describes the “catalytic moment” he met cartoonist Lynda Barry, and how it transformed his creative practice.

Why obscurity, especially at the beginning of your creative career, can actually be a positive thing.

How does working in public view continue to feed his creative process?

What is Austin’s “perpetual motion machine” for producing new material, and how did he discover it?

When do you know if a creative work is finished? Is it ever?
About Austin Kleon
Austin Kleon is the New York Times bestselling author of a trilogy of illustrated books about creativity in the digital age: Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work!, and Keep Going. He’s also the author of Newspaper Blackout, a collection of poems made by redacting the newspaper with a permanent marker. His books have been translated into dozens of languages and have sold over a million copies worldwide. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and sons.
Connect with Austin
https://austinkleon.com
twitter.com/austinkleon
instagram.com/austinkleon

Links from the episode
The comedy of survival
Quiet: The power of introverts a world that won’t stop talking
1 hr 17 min
November 24, 2022The need to feel extraordinary, with Alison Bechdel
Alison Bechdel is an award-winning cartoonist best known for her long-running comic strip, Dykes to Watch Out For, and her autobiographical graphic novel-turned-play, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. Discover the inspiration behind Alison’s most recent book, The Secret to to Superhuman Strength, how she’s learning to create healthy relationships with both her work and the humans in her life, and the impact of scarcity on her creative output.

More from the episode
When and why did Alison decide to commit herself to becoming a comic?

Alison explains how Dykes to Watch Out For got its start, and why she eventually decided to end the strip.

What was it like trying to get published as a queer female comic in the 90’s?

How Alison confronted her self-punishing work cycle, and learned to accept her limitations.

How did winning at MacArthur Fellowship affect her expectations for herself, financially and creatively?

Alison talks about writing autobiographically as a means of processing grief.
Connect with Alison
www.alisonbechdel.com
https://dykestowatchoutfor.com/
https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-secret-to-superhuman-strength-alison-bechdel/15412143
https://twitter.com/alisonbechdel
https://www.instagram.com/alisonbechdel/
Additional Links
https://jessicaabel.com/visual-scripting-using-indesign-to-write-comics/
https://jessicaabel.com/scrivener-for-fiction-comics/
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/12/books/review/the-secret-to-superhuman-strength-alison-bechdel.html
1 hr 1 min
November 11, 2022 Making the leap from (art) school to pro creative, with Brendan Keen, Mariel Capanna, and Brittany Bennett
Breaking into a creative field, whether you choose to be self-employed or not, can really leave you feeling like you're up the creek without a paddle. Who are you supposed to talk to, and when? Also, where do you find them? What are you supposed to do in the meantime until things...happen? And once you start doing that thing, how you do know when to stop?

We talked about it all at this panel discussion I moderated with three dynamic young artists, Brendan Keen, Mariel Capanna, and Brittany Bennett, about navigating the difficult transition from school to the working world. Each of them is following a unique path, and has tons to share about what they did wrong...and right!

About our guests
Brendan Keen
https://www.brendankeenstudio.com/

Brendan Keen is an artist and fabricator currently based in West Philadelphia. He was a transfer student at PAFA, where he majored in sculpture. He graduated with a BFA 2012, and was awarded the William Emlen Cresson Memorial Travel scholarship, which meant he stayed a fifth year at PAFA and received a certificate in 2013.
When he finished school, he joined the West Philadelphia-based arts collaborative studio and workshop, the Philadelphia Traction Company. Along with the other artists at Traction, he exhibited his sculpture and collaborative works in Philadelphia and San Francisco.
For the past eight years Brendan has worked full time as a self-employed Artist and fabricator, creating sculptural installations for public and private clients, including the Logan hotel, the W hotel, the Discovery Center, and private residences.
In between jobs, Brendan travels whenever possible, including across Western Europe and around Iceland via bicycle, and most recently across the U.S. in a DIY sprinter camper van.
Mariel Capanna
https://marielcapanna.com/
Mariel Capanna is a fine artist specializing in fresco who graduated with a BFA from PAFA 2012, and she was awarded the William Emlen Cresson Memorial Travel scholarship, which means she spent an extra year at PAFA and was awarded a certificate in 2013.
She received her MFA from Yale School of Art in 2020. She attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2017.
She’s exhibited many places, including Adams and Ollman (Portland), Central Park (Los Angeles), Gross McCleaf Gallery (Philadelphia), and Good Weather (North Little Rock), COOP (Nashville) and at the Bowtie Project (Los Angeles).
And has been the recipient of numerous residencies and fellowships (in addition to the Cresson): the 2019 Robert Schoelkopf Memorial Traveling Fellowship Recipient, the 2018 Haverford College VCAM Philadelphia Artist-in-Residence, a 2016 Tacony LAB Artist-in-Residence, a 2014 Independence Foundation Visual Arts Fellow, the Guapamacátaro Arts & Ecology Residency and The Mountain School of Art in 2016.
Mariel currently serves as a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Studio Art at Williams College, and a Fresco Instructor at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.
Her ongoing project Little Stone, Open Home, with Good Weather is a long-term and perpetually changing fresco in a single-car garage in North Little Rock, Arkansas.
Brittany Bennett
https://bennettbc.wixsite.com/rad-river
https://www.streamstudioschop.com/
https://www.brittanycbennett.com/

Brittany Bennett is a medical illustrator who graduated from the joint PAFA/PENN program in 2014. At PAFA, Brittany focused on academic oil painting and graphite drawing. Her work from this time is the result of meticulous observation of textures in nature and a celebration of details.
After graduating, she completed a graduate program for Medical and Biological Illustration at Johns Hopkins.
She currently works at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), where half her week is in Stream Studios servicing the hospital network at large, and the other half she runs RIVER: a medical illustration service just for the Radiology Department.
She is an artist with training in biology, anatomy, and visual communication who creates didactic illustrations and other visual aids. Brittany works with medical professionals at CHOP to produce patient education materials, figures for scientific literature, illustrated surgical training guides, 3D anatomical models, and more.
1 hr 13 min
October 27, 2022From full-time teaching to full-time comics, with Gene Luen Yang
Gene Luen Yang is a prolific cartoonist whose personal work is deeply rooted in the Chinese-American experience. He’s best known for his original graphic novel American Born Chinese, and his work with franchise stories such as Superman and Avatar: The Last Airbender. Hear how Gene went from being a computer engineer and high school teacher to full-time cartoonist and recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant.
More from the episode
How did the success of American Born Chinese change the trajectory of his career?

Gene opens up about quitting his day job: “It felt like breaking up with somebody.”

What do coding and comics have in common? And how did teaching help Gene become a better writer?

The difference in how he approaches licensed vs. creator-owned work, and the benefits of doing both.

Gene talks about the importance of learning to finish, and the anxious voice inside his head that keeps him on track.

How he juggles working on multiple projects at once with being a husband and parent.
About Gene Luen Yang
Gene Luen Yang writes, and sometimes draws, comic books and graphic novels. As the Library of Congress’ fifth National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, he advocates for the importance of reading, especially reading diversely. American Born Chinese, his first graphic novel from First Second Books, was a National Book Award finalist, as well as the winner of the Printz Award and an Eisner Award.
His two-volume graphic novel Boxers & Saints won the L.A. Times Book Prize and was a National Book Award Finalist. His other works include Secret Coders (with Mike Holmes), The Shadow Hero (with Sonny Liew), Superman from DC Comics (with various artists), and the Avatar: The Last Airbender series from Dark Horse Comics (with Gurihiru).
In 2016, he was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow. His most recent books are Dragon Hoops from First Second Books and Superman Smashes the Klan from DC Comics.

Connect with Gene Luen Yang
https://geneyang.com/
https://www.ted.com/speakers/gene_yang
https://twitter.com/geneluenyang?lang=en
https://www.facebook.com/cartoonistgeneluenyang
https://www.instagram.com/geneluenyang/

Additional links
Visual Scripting: using InDesign to write comics
1 hr
August 25, 2022Crazy artists making a living doing what they want to do, with Tomm Moore
Tomm Moore is an award-winning animator and director, and the co-founder of Cartoon Saloon animation studio in Kilkenny, Ireland. His notable work includes Wolfwalkers, Song of the Sea, and the Secret of Kells, a trilogy of films based on Irish folklore. Discover how Tomm and his partners built Cartoon Saloon from scratch, without any prior business knowledge, in the small city where they grew up.

More from the episode
Why learning to run a business meant graduating from the school of “mend and make do.”

How parenthood changed Tomm’s outlook on his professional career, and inspired his films.

The importance of soft skills like self-reflection and emotional intelligence when starting a business.

Tomm describes the moment he decided not to give up on Cartoon Saloon and “get a real job.”

What goes into making an Oscar-nominated film, and why does Tomm compare it to writing a haiku?

Tomm explains why he decided to stay in his hometown (Kilkenny, Ireland), and how it paid off.
About Tomm Moore
Over Cartoon Saloon’s history, Tomm has worked as Director, Art Director, Storyboarder, Animator and Illustrator across a range of the studio's projects. Tomm has directed 3 universally successful feature films: The Secret of Kells in 2010 and the spiritual follow-up, Song of the Sea in 2015, and Wolfwalkers in 2020. All three were nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards.
His latest feature film Wolfwalkers which he co-directed with Ross Stewart received several prominent critics awards including LAFCA Award and NYFCC Award as well as nominations for a Golden Globe and a Bafta and wins in several categories including Best Director and Best Independent Feature at the 2021 Annie Awards. He is currently working as a producer across several of Cartoon Saloon’s new film and series projects as well as refocusing on his personal art training.

Additional links
The Blog of Kells
Cartoon Saloon
Wolfwalkers trailer
56 min
August 03, 2022Pushing the limits of the possible with Josh O'Neill of Beehive Books
Josh O’Neill is a comics writer and editor, and co-owner of the Philadelphia-based publishing company, Beehive Books. Using Kickstarter, Josh and his business partner Maëlle Doliveux, publish books and literary objects too risky for traditional publishers. Josh shares what inspired him to pursue publishing, and how crowdfunding allows Beehive to create art that’s for and by their community.

More from the episode
Josh explains how he went from working in a local video store to running a publishing company.

The pros and cons of crowdfunding, and why traditional publishers are risk-averse.

How a community of local artists inspires and sustains Beehive.

Josh talks about starting over after shutting down his first business, Locust Moon Comics.

The importance of creating a healthy work environment and being a good boss to yourself.

Why the world needs business owners with the same “wild-eyed creativity” as traditional artists.
About Beehive Books
Beehive Books is a small press imprint founded by artist and designer Maëlle Doliveux and writer and editor Josh O'Neill, formerly of Locust Moon Press. They are a boutique company committed to producing book art editions of distinctive literary and pictorial works with singular design sensibilities, the highest production values, and a special emphasis on comics and graphic art.
Additional links:
Beehive Books
Challenging the dominant culture: intent vs. interpretation with Ronald Wimberly
1 hr 4 min
July 22, 2022Running a creative business on your own terms, with Jenna Weiss-Berman
In 2016, Jenna Weiss-Berman quit her job and decided to launch her own podcast company a month before her first child was born. It was an almost immediate success, and Pineapple Street Studios never took an outside investment. Jenna explains what prompted her risky career leap, and how she taught herself to run a business—on her own terms.

More from the episode…
Jenna explains how she got her start in the podcasting industry (and how you can too).

When does work become overwork, and is it always a bad thing?

The pros and cons of refusing to accept outside investments.

Jenna reveals the “startupy” mistake Pineapple Street made in the beginning.

Can running a business be creatively satisfying?

What makes a successful podcast, and how do you stand out among millions?
About Jenna Weiss-Berman
Jenna is the co-founder of Pineapple Street Studios. After almost a decade working in public radio on such shows as The Moth and StoryCorps, Jenna started the podcast department at BuzzFeed and created Another Round and Women of the Hour with Lena Dunham. She currently sits on the advisory board of The Moth.
Additional links:
Pineapple Street Studios
The 11th
9/12
Back Issue
1 hr 1 min

About The Autonomous Creative

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What does it take to become a successful writer or artist? Go behind the scenes with amazing professional creatives in a wide variety of fields to find out what, exactly, it took for them to be able…