Personal Update: Birthday Contemplation, Death of the Art Career?

I celebrated my 43rd birthday this past Nov 7th! Another jog around the sun has made me more contemplative than ever.

To be quite honest, it’s been a rough year for my husband and I. Things have been extra stressful ever since my husband was laid off in February of this year. We thought surely he’d pick up work within a few of months, but the extreme layoffs in upper level tech have meant crickets for job opportunities.

This reality has made the future of my art career an uncertain one. We simply cannot survive off of my income and savings alone, with the art industry looking as bleak as ever for so many reasons (AI art, inflation, layoffs, the list goes on). I’ve returned to accepting freelance work and am trying to return to working conventions, but I’ve also met crickets so far and shows take the risky investment of table fees, not to mention the health risks that made me quit cons in the first place.

The long of the short of it is that if by the end of this year, if our situation doesn’t change, I’ll be re-assessing this career path (after 10+ years of working at it) and likely pivoting into a different industry altogether.

This place may become even more quiet as my pace slows down to accomodate my schedule as I study to earn my A+ cert and move into more consistent helpdesk work that I can do remotely since we share one car.

January 2025 will be the deadline for me to decide what to do as we near the annivesary of a whole year of unemployment for my husband. If anyone is looking for Technical Account Managers or Sys Admins, drop me a DM!

We have a couple of months before that dreaded deadline…so let us hope against hope that things start looking up!

A Little Bit of Happiness 

Thankfully this post isn’t all doom and gloom. On my birthday, I was so blessed that even with all this extreme stress, my family went the extra mile to help me feel special with a ramen lunch at a new place that just opened up nearby, cookies and cream mousse cake, an art book, and a video game I had been looking forward to for years (Dragon Age Veilguard!).

Even with all of this going on, I’m so lucky and loved! Where there is ramen, there is always room for happiness.

(I made my old Shadowrun character, Aurora, into a sarcastic Elf who loves to smash things. It’s been therapuetic to play her right now.)

As hopeless as the post no doubt sounds, I’m never going to stop making art. There are too many stories I want to tell and cool characters I want to draw! Hopefully, I can keep on sharing that journey with you all, even at a glacial pace.

No matter what happens in this next year of life, I want to thank everyone, old and new, who has stuck with me here or moved through my life at various times to give me hope and succor. The little bits of support have meant the world!

Much love, friends. Stay inspired and keep up hope! There are still good things and people in this world.

<3 Ang

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