I wanted to go back and revisit the idea of support for artists in more detail. I talked about it briefly in one of my very first blog posts “Finding Your Community”, with the goal of encouraging artists to accept help from their communities and to offer that same support in return to their fellow artists.

The Value of Artists

Artists offer an essential role in our communities. During the pandemic especially, I feel that we have learned about the value of having entertainment and beauty to help distract us from the difficult things happening in our lives. Though, art is not only useful as a distraction, it can also be used to communicate. Visual symbolism and imagery are far more effective communication tools than words alone.

In addition to entertaining and conveying ideas, artists also help to develop solutions to community problems. Many of us have chosen to take on a cause as part of our art career or have worked on projects that benefit the community as a whole. Examples of this include: environmental conservation artists, who gather plastics from our oceans and transform them into works of art; educators, who contribute to the growth and shaping of minds of all ages and activist artists, who use their work to remind us of the progress that still needs to be made.

Tangible Forms of Support

There are so many ways to support your local artists. For the purposes of this blog I have decided to organize them into two categories: financial and non financial support. Financial support is essential for an artist. Without some form of financial support we would not have the time or resources needed to create art. That being said, not everyone has money that they can contribute regularly to the artists that they know. It is important to understand that non financial support is just as essential to shaping the careers of artists.

Financial Support

The most basic form of financial support is to purchase work from the artists that you want to support. This can be anything from shopping at their online store, to ordering a commissioned item. I should add that when I call this support, I do not mean that is it charity, it is not. Purchasing work from an artist is an exchange that each party benefits from. Another form of financial support can be attending events that the artists is participating in, and purchasing tickets, and/or merchandise.

As the internet has grown, and the idea of valuing artists has spread, platforms such as Kickstarter or Patreon have given us new ways to support the work we love. Kickstarter allows an artist or creator to introduce an idea to their community, and request early stage funding to get their projects off the ground in exchange for early access to whatever the project offers. Patreon is a monthly support system that gives artists and creators a predictable monthly revenue source in exchange for benefits for the community members. There are many platforms that operate like this, and it is a great way to support your artists.

Non Financial

One of the easiest, and most compassionate ways you can support an artist is to tell them how much you like what they are doing. Encouragement goes a long way, but there are other ways that you can support an artists without spending money. Consider offering your time to help with a big project, or join them for a market event. Artists have so many plates spinning at once and help goes a long way. Another fantastic way to support an artist is to tell other people about their work. Helping artists form connections with new clients or potential opportunities is a huge part of what makes an art career work. This could mean anything from sharing their work on social media to talking about them with your friends.

If you are an artist yourself and you are looking for ways to support your fellow artists consider sharing resources and opportunities with them. Forwarding a link to a grant that might work for them, or connecting them with another member of the artistic community can make a huge difference in what they are able to accomplish. Reciprocity and collaboration are essential components to a successful artist network and together we can build opportunities for ourselves and each other.

What Does Your Support Mean for Artists

What does all this support mean for the artist who receives it? When we talk about financial support we need to acknowledge that sales revenue and platforms like Patreon allow artists to pay for cost of living expenses such as food, rent, bills, car payments etc. in addition to the cost of the materials, tools and studio space that they need to create. These are expenses that an artist would have to supplement with other work if they did not receive financial support. When you support an artist financially you are literally buying time for them to create.

Artists need and deserve the support of their communities. We do so much to enrich the lives of those around us, but unfortunately our time is not always valued enough for us to maintain a stable lifestyle. It is only through the support of our communities and the connections that we share with each other that we can create and thrive.

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I thought I would take a break from my usual blog topics, and share a few stories about my beloved studio cat, Aster, sometimes makes an appearance on my social media or in my product photos. Aster had to have a couple of teeth out this week, which is a common surgery for cats, but it made me worry about her. Especially with the things I have seen this year, it felt like just about anything could go wrong. So, here is a blog about my cat, I hope you enjoy.

Kitten Story

Aster, or “Aster the Disaster Master” as we have playfully dubbed her, joined my family several years ago when I was still living in Memphis, Tennessee. At the time we were living in a small one bedroom, concrete walled apartment that was often infested with cockroaches. I had several unpleasant cockroach related experiences during my first several months living in Memphis, but the incidents became fewer and fewer after we adopted our new kitten, Aster.

At the time, I had not connected the lapse in cockroach experiences with the arrival of our new kitten. Like the gradual disappearance of anything unpleasant, I simply stopped thinking about cockroaches all together. It wasn’t until we moved out of the apartment and pulled the refrigerator out from its place, that I realized what had been happened to the beetles. There was a collection of cockroach heads, dozens of them, littering the floor under the spot where the refrigerator had been. Our playful kitten had been dispatching roaches for us. Presumably, eating the bodies and swiping the heads, hockey puck style under the refrigerator to keep as trophies.

Traveling Kitty

Aster has had the unique experience of becoming a very well traveled cat. She has journeyed with me from Tennessee to California, then from Central California to Southern California and from Southern California to the Pacific Northwest. The only constant in my in my poor kitty’s life, seems to be me and also change.

Over the years, Aster has become more and more comfortable with traveling in the car. Instead of rinding in a carrier, Aster sleeps on the seat next to me, or looks out the window. She enjoys holding her face up to the air conditioning vents and bobbing up and down as if she is surfing on a breeze. When we are stopped in traffic, she likes to watch the people in the cars next to us. They always get a kick out of seeing a traveling cat.

Fuzzy Explorer

I think that Aster’s experience with travel and constant change has shaped her personality, because she is quite the little explorer. Anytime she finds herself in a new location, she immediately begins cautiously exploring the new environment. I have seen her stand on her back paws to open cupboard doors. She wraps her two front paws over the lip of the door and walks backward taking the door with her, once she is satisfied that it is open, she will duck around the door and investigate the goings on within the cupboard. If there is nothing exciting inside, she moves on the the next cupboard door. It is not uncommon for me to return to a place where we are staying, only to find all the cupboard doors wide open like the Sixth Sense.

Cozy Hiding Spots

At the beginning of the pandemic, Aster and I stayed with my brother for a few days on our trip back to California. During our stay, Aster made herself suspiciously scarce. We searched what we believed to be the entire apartment, top to bottom. We knew that none of the doors or windows had been opened since we had seen her last, but we still could not find her. My poor brother was becoming distressed, worried that his apartment might not be as cat proof as he had thought. Was there some cat sized hole that he had forgotten about?

After a time, I convinced my brother to sit down and resume dinner. I explained that my cat had a knack for finding the most elusive hiding spaces and that she would turn up soon. After all, she could not have gotten out. After about twenty minutes of tension while we sat and ate, we heard a cat sized thud on the kitchen counter. Aster had climbed up into the space above the refrigerator, but under the cupboards and had been hanging out behind a discarded wine box. The sneaky little cat was so please with her cozy hiding spot and had refused to come out, despite our frantic searching.

Missing Cat

I had a much worse scare when I moved to Fullerton for college. I was living in a three story condominium with three other women, who were each renting rooms. Most of the time, Aster stayed in my third story bedroom, because another cat who had lived there longer had run of the living room and she was not a fan of Aster. The idea of Aster making it all the way down to the ground floor and then out the front door into the world, seemed very unlikely, but it did happen one day.

Quick cat tip: If your are going to put two strange cats together, a male and female works a lot better than two females.

I spent hours circling our complex, calling her name, shaking a bowl of kibble, and gradually turning into a crying mess of a cat mom. I refused to go to class, I called in sick to work and in the end I just sat on the porch willing her to come home. That is when I saw a man in coveralls carrying a cat sized cage and heading for my neighbors condo. I jumped to my feet and accosted the man. I wanted to know where he was going with that cage. He explained that someone had a crazy cat in their condo and could not get them out from between the washer and dryer. I knew it was my cat.

They did not let me in right away, and I stood on my neighbor’s front porch while that man from animal control “assessed” the situation. Apparently, he determined that retrieving the cat would be a pain, because he came back downstairs and asked me what my cat looked like. Once I was allowed inside, I ran upstairs. The floorpan of this condo was identical to ours, and it made sense that Aster ran straight to the third floor. She probably thought she would find our room up there, but when she arrived it did not look right. She hid in the nearest place she could find, the laundry closet.

My neighbor helped me pull the washer and dryer apart and I reached in and scooped up my cat. She did not scratch or bite, she knew it was me and remained clutched in a tight ball even after I got her back into our own condo and up to our room. The poor girl had been traumatized, and swore to never go for another adventure, at least not for a while.

Comfort Cat

I can not tell you how relieved I am, that Aster has consistency returned to me after her kitty walkabouts and that she has stayed in good health over the years. She has always been such a great source of comfort and companionship, from cuddling with me when I am sad, to being my only company when I move to a new city. I am very thankful for this little cat.

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