I spent most of last week elbow-deep in pigment and paperwork.
The pigment was the fun part—minty green earth pigment from a batch I processed by hand, turned into tiny watercolour paintings. The paperwork? Emails, logistics, and the kind of admin work that makes you feel like your creativity is stuck behind a paywall.
I talk a lot about the artistic side of my work, but less about the structural stuff that holds it up. The parts that aren’t very Instagrammable.
Like the fact that I have ten email addresses—on purpose.
Or that I have to set a timer just to survive checking them.
Or that I once updated my voicemail to say “I don’t listen to voicemail, please email or text”—and meant it.
As someone who’s recently discovered I’m Autistic, I’m finally starting to understand that these “workarounds” aren’t flaws. They’re strategies. Ways I’ve built a life that lets me do what I love without burning out.
Why I Started Painting to Pay Down My Debt
Recently, I began a little experiment:
Each day, I paint one small watercolour using my handmade earth pigments—just 6x9, nothing fancy—and I use it to make a micro-payment on my personal credit card by leveraging engagement on TikTok
Do I need to do this? Not really. I'm not carrying a bunch of crazy credit card debt.
But there’s something deeply satisfying about turning beauty into motion. About making art that turns into momentum. And encouraging my audience to engage with my content so I can make these payments faster with their help!
It’s a weirdly popular framework on TikTok, which wasn’t the point, but hey—if people want to watch me pay down my Visa with pigment and persistence, I’ll take it.
And now I’m selling the paintings. Because they feel like a little piece of truth.
The Bigger Picture (Beyond the Admin)
Running a creative business means holding a lot of opposites at once:
- Beauty and boredom
- Product and process
- Connection and boundaries
- Rest and responsibility
And lately, I’ve been learning to stop overfunctioning. (My therapists - yes PLURAL THERAPISTS) have so much job security it's not funny.
To let myself create without pushing.
To let admin live in one lane and my art in another.
If you’ve ever felt like the doing of your work is eating the why—you’re not alone.
This is me, trying to do it differently.
[Click here to see the pigment paintings]
Each one is signed, numbered, and made with love, debt, and dirt.