The freelance juggle struggle: busy, bumpy and brilliant

‘You’ve got a lot on haven’t you?!’ Said everyone, and mostly me to myself, as I justify stress-eating box upon box of chocolate fingers.

This year has been my fullest yet as a freelance creative, with a crazy mocktail of freelancing, part time employment and a Master’s degree. And if that wasn’t enough, inspired by some awesome creative biz friends here in Bournemouth (Alice, Lizzy, Lisa, Emilie, Karolin, you naughty, awesome lot) I thought I’d also take on the most full on project yet and try out becoming a mum as well (because they are honestly slaying at it). Here’s what I’ve learnt!
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Most of me loves being busy - outside of full time employment I’ve had the luxury of having so many new experiences and so much variety in my week. If you’re a creative freelancer too, you’ll most likely relate to the entrepreneurial thing of constantly wanting to start more projects, and the major irritability you develop from sitting in one place for too long. Even more so if you’re also neurodivergent, which so many of us are. 

Even so, I didn’t really intend on going on maternity leave, handing my MA in and getting a baby out all within a few weeks of each other, (still hoping that I don’t hand my baby in, and take my MA research to the delivery suite), but it’s still been an enriching and empowering process, because between snacks, naps and near collapse:

• The experience has made me think about how we manage giving ourselves time off as freelancers (i.e we love it too much to leave it alone?!). With the luxury of a little stat-mat leave cushion from my part time work at TOSH, I’m planning to pause most commissions until the end of the year, but I like that I can see what happens a bit and be flexible about my return to self employed work. I have had to slow down through the year, and I’ve been more vigilant about my boundaries, my self care and my time in a way that I never have before.

 

• Preggy life has already introduced me to a whole new wonderful and wobbly circle. With my work centred around people and communities, I’m keen to gain this entirely new perspective (aka, mum life) and to see how my work will be shaped by this.

 

• Aaand as bit of a deadline junkie, baby deadline has been some great motivation for having a snazzy rebrand and refocus. I’ve brought my freelance closer to me as a person (now Corrianna Clarke, the artist formerly known as Coradraws RIP), and with some help from graphic designer JJ Illustrates, I now feel like my visual branding, website and portfolio reflects what I’m doing and why I want to do it. It was sort of a treat to myself and something I wanted to make really clear now so that I can let my brain go mushy for a while later.

So here I am writing my first ever blog as a creative freelancer, and then likely tootling off for a couple of months to actually focus on one thing (...maybe) before I make a tentative emergence again. Until then: thank you so much for coming, and I hope that you’ll stick with me and see what else I’ll be making, and rambling on about in relation to community art and creative freelancer life :) 

…How am I doing so far?

Above photo by CoCreate. Details of this project here if you fancy!