Issue 37 of the magazine is now available to read free of charge simply be visting the magazine page and opening the link.

This last 12 months, many of which I have been shielding, opened my eyes to a number of things.  Firstly, making the transition from hobby artist to emerging artist and building a reconcognisable body of work takes focus and commitment.  Not only do you have to hold down the day job to pay the bills, but you also need to work full time on creating a new business. It’s ok having a website, and relatively easy to set one up yourself for low costs, BUT, adding content and value to your website and building your personal brand at the same time as creating artwork (both digital and hand embellished prints) is a whole different level of commitment.  Take, for example, the simple sounding task of videoing one of your processes when creating hand embellished art is amazingly time consuming, and then when you finish and review the result it is substandard and not polished so you either scrap it and start again or walk away and do something different.

The realisation that becoming serious about my artwork meant my work space was not suitable for a working artist as there wasn’t room to create both photo-art and do the hand embellishing.  Therefore, I took a big step, both time and monetary wise, and rebuilt my studio space.  I took “ownership” of one of our spare bedrooms and started the task of decorating. This included, laying a new laminate floor and fitting worksurfaces all-round the room. Time wise, this took me a week of working a few hours each evening after work and a full weeks holiday from the day job to complete.  I’m now moved in to the new studio space and as it is more organised and suitable to work in I can focus fully on creating photo-art, making and framing hand embellished prints and sublimating artwork on giftware and clothes.  

In short, it has taken 12 months at home for me to realise that if I want to make a career from my photo-art, I need to treat it like a full-time job, not like a hobby.  Watch this space, it may take some time but I have taken the next step in my artistic journey by physically destroying my old hobby space and rebuilding my art studio and future.  Now and can now see what my career as a photo-artist and creator looks like.  

I invite you to join me on my continuing journey of self discovery.

James Hurley
Photo Artist / Magazine Editor

“Photographs arent taken, they are made”

Ansel Adams