Profiling nearly 50 professionals from every area of the craft industry, this comprehensive career resource is for anyone seeking to pursue a creative career full-time or on the side. Written by a market-savvy crafts career advisor, this book provides valuable tips on how to make the transition from a normal day job to a dream craft career, and includes a unique section for young craftspeople and their parents. Organized by type of material-clay, fiber, metal, glass, and wood-each section informs through an enticing mix of inspirational profiles, an introduction to each medium, and information on where to find education and professional support. Subgenres of each craft are detailed-fiber art, for example, branches out into baskets, beads, book arts, dolls, quilts, wearables, weaving, and yarn. With a history of the crafts, cutting-edge industry surveys, and self-help planning tools, this book will empower beginning crafters and inspire seasoned crafters to turn their creative talents into a successful occupation. * Offers peer advice from nearly 50 experienced craftspeople * Offers an eclectic mix of inspirational job profiles * Advertising to include The Crafts Report and American Crafts

Jeff Goins dismantles the myth that being creative is a hindrance to success by revealing how an artistic temperament is a competitive advantage in the marketplace.? The myth of the starving artist has dominated our culture, seeping into the minds of creative people and stifling their pursuits. The truth is that the world's most successful artists did not starve. In fact, they capitalized on the power of their creative strength. In Real Artists Don't Starve, bestselling author and creativity expert Jeff Goins debunks the myth of the starving artist by unveiling the ideas that created it and replacing them with 14 rules for artists to thrive, including: Steal from your influences (don't wait for inspiration) Collaborate with others (working alone is a surefire way to starve) Take strategic risks (instead of reckless ones) Make money in order to make more art (it's not selling out) Apprentice under a master (a "lone genius" can never reach full potential) From graphic designers and writers to artists and business professionals, creatives already know that no one is born an artist. Goins' revolutionary rules celebrate the process of becoming an artist, a person who utilizes the imagination in fundamental ways. He reminds creatives that business and art are not mutually exclusive pursuits. Real Artists Don't Starve explores the tension every creative person and organization faces in an effort to blend the inspired life with a practical path to success. Being creative isn't a disadvantage for success, it is a powerful tool to be harnessed.

Seize the day in the name of art. This creative call to arms from the mind of Neil Gaiman combines his extraordinary words with deft and striking illustrations by Chris Riddell. 'Like a bedtime story for the rest of your life, this is a book to live by. At its core, it's about freeing ideas, shedding fear of failure, and learning that "things can be different" ' INSTITUTE OF IMAGINATION Be bold. Be rebellious. Choose art. It matters. Neil Gaiman once said that 'the world always seems brighter when you've just made something that wasn't there before'. This little book is the embodiment of that vision. Drawn together from speeches, poems and creative manifestos, Art Matters explores how reading, imagining and creating can change the world, and will be inspirational to young and old. THIS PAPERBACK EDITION INCLUDES BEAUTIFUL NEW ILLUSTRATIONS OF 'GOING WODWO'. What readers are saying about ART MATTERS 'A rallying cry for all artists and creators' 'Just the injection of positive thinking I needed' 'What a gorgeous, sweet and very, very wise little book' 'You don't know it yet, but it's likely you need this book' 'I feel artistically charged up for the first time in ages'

Have you ever dreamed of superpowers? Your own innate talents, magnified. Entirely new talents, enhanced. You yourself hold the keys to unlocking these abilities. All you lack is the know-how. With Superhuman by Design as your guide, you'll learn how to tap the deep wells of creativity within you and how to use that creativity to fuel the life you want - not the path someone else has mapped out for you. Live a life of imagination and passion. A life full of meaning and purpose. A life of possibilities, headlined by game-changing results. Drawing on the insights of design thinking, the experience from a decade of creative leadership in Fortune 100 companies, and lessons learned in the volatile world of tech startups, designer and entrepreneur Donald Burlock lays out an inspired strategy for the journey to becoming your boldest and most successful self. Not just at work, but in every aspect of your life. Go ahead - hit the launch button and live the superhuman life!

Popular eCommerce platforms like Etsy have attributed to a sharp increase in creative craft entrepreneurs, and craft entrepreneurship has strong links to the cultural and lifestyle field. This timely book looks at craft entrepreneurship and defines what qualifies as craft entrepreneurs and their products in a global context. The edited book begins with an overview of the craft sector and each chapter provides a holistic picture of what craft entrepreneurship entails. Different kinds of creative crafts are examined, providing a discussion of what entrepreneurship in creative crafts involves, how they differ from other types of products, and how craft makers may engage in entrepreneurial behaviour and marketing. The book helps readers understand the current state of development of the craft sector, its various challenges, and what the future holds for these businesses. Craft entrepreneurship is a new, emerging area of entrepreneurship study, and this book will interest scholars and those who are interested in craft making and wish to develop it into a small business.

Craft is resurgent. More people are buying craft; more money is being spent on craft products than ever before. This book centres craft as a creative industry, illuminating the experiences of those working in and around craft, particularly people from marginalised groups. Shining a light on inequalities around craft work, the author examines the lived experiences of women makers of colour in the professional craft sector. Experiences of racism and microaggressions at all stages of their craft career are analysed. The author draws on innovative empirical research carried out in the UK and Australia, two countries where the resurgence in craft is apparent, yet professional craft practice is dominated by the white and relatively privileged. In interrogating hierarchies of expertise and cultural value in craft, the author employs case studies from community crafts and social enterprises. The result is a book of interest to scholars at the intersections of the creative and cultural industries, the creative economy and inequalities at work.

Craft and the Creative Economy examines the place of craft and making in the contemporary cultural economy, with a distinctive focus on the ways in which this creative sector is growing exponentially as a result of online shopfronts and home-based micro-enterprise, 'mumpreneurialism' and downshifting, and renewed demand for the handmade.

Craft lives inside the artist, and it operates in the mind, not in standards or techniques. Creative writers navigate thresholds in consciousness as they develop their arts practice. Craft Consciousness and Artistic Practice in Creative Writing explores what it is to be an artist as it traces radical, feminist, and culturally embedded traditions in craft. The new term "craft consciousness" identifies the nexus from which writers explore making processes and practitioner knowledge. Writers, as with all artists, create and reimagine themselves anew, and it is in this perpetual state of becoming that they find ways to enlarge their sense of artistry through an exploration of forms, processes, and mediums beyond the written word. For writers, this book initiates a reexamination of the mission of creative writing through disrupting patriarchal, racist, colonialist, ableist, and capitalist associations with dominant craft. Drawing from twenty-five interviews with living artists outside of writing and in a host of fields from conceptual art to leatherwork and dance, the book shines a light on how the processes associated with craft are embodied. Craft is an internalized matrix; it need not be commodified for the marketplace or codified in the standards necessitated by institutions of higher education. By redesigning writing workshops and MFA/PhD programs through craft consciousness, new potentials and collaborations emerge, and it becomes more conceivable to imagine dynamic, inclusive relationships between writers, scientists, and other artists.

What kinds of jobs are available in museums? How do museums work? What opportunities are there in museum research and collection, preserving and cataloging, exhibiting and interpreting, publicity, administration, event planning, catering, support? Creative Careers in Museums answers all these questions and many more, with full information on how everyone can pinpoint and showcase their existing skills--then turn those skills into a dream job at a museum or other cultural institution. Interviews with people who have made career transitions into the field are packed with practical and inspiring ideas, and there’s even information on starting new museums. Advice on targeting potential employers, putting together a resume, interviewing, and landing the job, plus an extensive resource list, make this the perfect starting point for anyone who wants to work in a museum.