We were lucky to catch up with Kate Jensen recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Kate, thanks for joining us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

Right now, days and weeks can look perfectly structured or completely all over the place. In one month I may book with a creative agency for 2 weeks where I’ll work 8 hours a day on, say, 6 different films or shows creating the Key Art campaigns (movie posters) for Netflix, Amazon, A24, Hulu etc. When these are my weeks I really focus on carving out 2 hours before my day to solely focus on my own artwork. Then, maybe the 3rd week, I’ll have a few projects creating the art for book covers or album covers and fill the rest of my time in with admin work and financial planning. Then, during an ideal month, that 4th week will be set up where I say “no” to all freelance work and strictly focus on my own art practice. During this time I will paint, photograph my art, build a marketing campaign around the series, and announce the “DROP.jjj” online and in my newsletter where I sell to subscribers and collectors.

I wear a lot of hats and those hats require different levels of focus and preparation. Sometimes it’s incredibly creative and fulfilling and other times it’s just simply underwhelming. A lot of being a freelancer, or business owner, is making tough decisions about how to spend your time if you want to not only stay afloat, but stay successful. Sometimes that means setting aside your feelings to make decisions that will benefit the business in the long run; like putting the art side of your business on the back burner for a year to say yes to all corporate design work. Other times it means saying no to client work because you HAVE to get your own ideas out or you will implode. It’s a balance!

Kate, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I feel fortunate in that I kind of have the “job” part of my life figured out; not in a way that it will stay the same forever and never change, but just in the sense that I know what I enjoy doing and how to make a living at it. It took me 10 years to get to this place after having many in-house and freelance jobs in entertainment, music, and publishing. While keeping that a full-time job, I now get to kind of take a deep breath and focus any further pursuits on my artwork.

My mission moving forward is to really get to know myself through my art; which sounds so cheesy when I say it or put it in writing, but it really is the truth. I think for a long time I wasn’t allowing myself to actually step into what it means to be an artist because that would be scary; that would require me having to express feelings through my art. That is… so vulnerable and so embarrassing as a midwesterner who just wants everyone to like me! If I paint sneakers and pop culture references I know you will approve, and it requires no vulnerability from me or you. If I paint the darkness that lives alongside the light, the scary dreams or intrusive thoughts, then you may think something is wrong with me or I’m weird. But I’m really excited to lean into the weird, especially now that I have a structured model around how to sell and market the work.

I’m really focussed on creating series that have themes and selling those theme through a playlist and marketing assets; very similar to how musicians sell an album. I’m less interested in creating for instagram or content purposes these days; I’ve stepped off of that hamster wheel. (Though not sure I ever really had all 4 paws on it to begin with!)

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

This is a really simple answer, but just share your favorite artists work on social media or tell a friend about it. Of course, if you can afford to buy the art that’s wonderful, but art is expensive and is oftentimes a luxury. So adding yourself to their newsletter or posting their art in your instagram story goes such a long way for so many reasons! Especially right now with ever-looming AI boogeyman.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

The lesson I’ve had to unlearn, or maybe the way of thinking I’ve had to unlearn, is the idea that you will eventually have it all figured out and you will be prepared for what ever life throws at you. I’m a very “think 10 steps ahead and have every single duck in a row” kind of person and it has helped me weather many-a-storm, but some storms last longer than you could have prepared for and you just have to deal with it. I know for certain that I heard this so many times when I first started out, but the young me was always like…”yeah but…Life won’t happen to me because I will have accounted for all potential setbacks.” And you kind of have to think that way when you’re young or else you wouldn’t have the guts to even start. But inevitably, guess what? Life really does do it’s Life thing! LOL. No escaping it no matter how hard you try. Pandemics, surgeries, industry strikes, sickness, death. Some version for it is coming for ya but the good news is it’s not personal. It comes for everyone. How you handle it is what sets you apart.

Contact Info:

• Website: katejjj.shop
• Instagram: @kate.jjj
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katelynjensen/

Image Credits
Gravillis Inc. Rhubarb