One of the things I have learned over the years is that many people in creative fields — art, music, writing, photography, crafts, etc. — are definitely hopeful about earning something from their work... but they are also painfully aware that "A living" is unlikely to be in the cards.
Many of us consider venues like Patreon as potential avenues to help bring at least a little income into the picture... but we're often condemned for doing so, with observers either insisting that we've "sold out" or that we're "looking for handouts."
The intention behind my creating a Patreon account for my Alchemy Stones project was never because I considered it to be some scheme to make money. It was also never something I considered to be a "handout" for something, without doing the work.
My primary thought was that I was starting something in the hopes of getting a small stream of income going that would be sufficient to cover my monthly online subscription fees, web hosting and fees associated with having shops on Etsy, eBay and other places, and to subsidize the cost of paint and packaging materials and whatever else goes with getting a painted stone from being a plain rock I pick up on a beach to becoming something beautiful presented in a nice package with a descriptive pamphlet and then into your hands.
Given the strange and inequitable world in which we live it gradually also evolved into the idea that with a little bit of help from other people — who clearly enjoyed (and even admired) what I was doing — I could get enough of a small income stream going to justify being engaged in creative endeavors (at least part of the time) rather than simply throwing in the towel and saying "I can't afford to do this because I have to spend the time I'm spending painting on rocks engaged in something that is income producing." Like "work" work.
And no, I never saw it as a handout of any kind. Running a Patreon account is not the same thing as trying to raise funds through something like a GoFundMe. In a sense, it is actually more like a form of shopping, except the artist gets paid in small monthly amounts rather single sporadic lump sums. After all, the "sponsorships" all include supporters getting something for something not something for nothing.
I paint all this entirely by hand... FREE hand!
Every support tier, starting from $3 a month — which is half what anybody pays for even one latte from Starbucks — gets a reward of some sort. Not an imaginary and intangible reward but a real tangible thing that will show up in your mailbox after a few months of support. And yes if you want to be technical about it — which is important to many people — you're also getting free shipping!
As a tool for getting something creative to get from idea to becoming sustainable... Patreon has somehow never been more important than it is now. People might not see fit to buy even a $30 piece of creative work but they can justify $3 or $5 a month... plus it's an inexpensive way to support the arts. I should know, seeing as how I support several creative people on Patreon.
I like their work and I like the idea of supporting creativity, even if I don't necessarily need any of their work. But that's a whole different story.
At the moment I'm in the process of redesigning and "modernizing" my Patreon page... which hadn't really been changed since I created it, pre-Covid.
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your week!
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2026.08.19 01:33 PDT
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