Artist Turns Daily Commute Into $5,000/Month Side Hustle

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

Greetings, hello, and welcome. This is Chris Guillebeau, your host of "Side Hustle School," back with you once again for episode 292. Cruising right along with more "Side Hustle" inspiration for you, telling you stories that can help you take action to create the freedom you're looking for, or of course, maybe just some extra money, 'cause that's good too. Now, yesterday we had, admittedly, a bit of an unusual story. In case you missed it, it was about bone-cleaning beetles, like the insect beetles, that one woman keeps in her home and earns $3,000 a month from.

Pretty crazy and true story. I do think it's pretty wild that someone can make so much money from something so unusual, but let's say that flesh-eating beetles are not your thing, for some reason. How about an artist success story? We have a lot of artists out there in the community who are doing lots of different things, working in different mediums, and some of them actually make money. What separates the ones who make money from the ones who don't?

Well, we're gonna talk about that. Today's featured case study used her skills as a painter, her love for her hometown, and her last $100 to start a side hustle at creating art that she loves. This project now earns up to $5,000 a month, and I'll tell you that whole story in just a moment. [Applause] [Music]

Ursula Barton always knew that bartending wasn't her calling. Although she'd been in the service industry since she was 19, using it to fund her way through art school and her many travels around the world, she believed that a more creative career was beckoning.

On her bicycle commutes to her job, bartending for high-end catering companies that provided services in wealthy homes, she found inspiration in the cityscapes and rainy landscapes of her hometown of Portland, Oregon. Hey, that's my hometown too. The bridges, the skyline, and the not always sunny weather worked as a muse. But Ursula didn't want to just create the work that she liked, she wanted to create work that people wanted to buy, which is the principle that led to a big career transition. She would use the access her job gave her to the expensive homes of Oregon, study the artwork that was in those homes, and then use it to influence her own work.

When she was on the job, she would sneak off for a glimpse of the art, take notes whenever she could, and paint a picture, at least in her mind, of what would make her work profitable. Ursula quickly realized the work she was creating and the work collectors wanted to buy were not the same thing. Instead of figures in hands, like she was doing, most of that art featured landscapes or abstracts or surreal pieces. But instead of giving up and walking away defeated, or instead of saying, "I'm just gonna make the kind of art I want," she drew on her experiences from art school to help her update her style and bring it more in line with what customers wanted. And before investing all of her time and energy into bigger pieces, she ran some tests on smaller pieces of her new work.

Ursula put together some postcard prints of her cityscapes and asked some of her favorite shops if they would sell them on consignment, where the shop takes a piece of the profit from each card. Once she got her first few sales under her belt, she knew she was onto a profitable side hustle, or at least she hoped that this new direction would be more attractive to buyers. Using her connections from the service industry, she focused on finding friends, acquaintances, and ex-colleagues who would help get her work featured in some of Portland's coffee shops. Ursula says that process wasn't too difficult because the service industry is close-knit and most people are happy to help out when they can. For this new direction, her initial startup costs were around $300 a month for supplies in a small studio space, but these initial placements were making her up to $400 a month, essentially covering her costs as she built us something bigger.

As she went from placement to placement in different coffee shops and stores, she began to get access to some of Portland's most popular ones. These prominent placements led to Ursula landing work creating murals for businesses and events around Portland. These murals also proved to be a successful marketing technique, enabling her to land consignments for travel Portland, the city's visitor bureau, and even decorating the side of a railway line for TriMet, the city's light rail system. Ursula began this new direction five years ago, worked on it consistently, and right now she averages between $4,000 and $7,000 a month in revenue, way up from $400 a month when she started, and she takes home up to $5,000 in net income once all of her bills are paid. What if you're an artist looking to turn your skills into a side hustle, and by side hustle, I mean a profitable one, Ursula recommends starting small and working your way up to bigger, more expensive pieces.

Understand what your audience really wants and create it on a small scale, then scale it upwards. You can still pick up Ursula's work for $2 on a postcard, $50 on a print, or up to $2,000 for a custom painting. She says being honest and easy to work with will get you a long way too. Looking to the future, Ursula wants to bring her artwork to apparel for the people of Oregon, as well as creating new works based on the cityscapes that she holds so dearly. [Music]

So a couple of comments for our artists out there.

By artist, I mean that quite broadly. This also includes writers, musicians, dancers, et cetera. Before I get in trouble, let me first say that you have a right to make whatever art you want, and not everything you make has to be profitable or marketable or whatever. So if you have a vision for something or something that you just love to do, well, by all means, keep doing it. But here on Side Hustle School, I'm focused on helping people make money.

So if you do want to make money, I think it's very wise what Ursula did in making a shift and trying to understand what people wanted. I don't think this means she was selling out. If it is, I've done much the same in my own work. Like there are lots of topics that I like to explore or write about or share, but I try to focus on the ones that are not just interesting to me, but also have some value for other people. Personally, I think selling out is when you do something that you really don't want to do.

You don't like it at all, but it just has some kind of market value. Whereas in this story, what I see, and at least in my journey too, it's just about recognizing that there are lots of different directions you could go with your art. If you do want to make art and get paid for it, then it's wise to recognize, I think, that it's not all about you. It's also about your customers or your patrons or whoever's going to support your work. So that's the underlying philosophy, and I like the tactic she had of observation.

You know, I often talk about the power of observation. In this story, Ursula did that quite literally. While she was being a bartender on a high-end catering job at somebody's expensive home, she paid attention to the art that was on the wall. I don't think she was really snooping around. I mean, it's art that's on the wall.

It's visible in public, and it's meant to be seen. But she did think for herself, you know, here I am on this job, and I'm going to do a good job. I'm going to be available. But when things aren't busy, I'm going to look around. I'm going to see what's hanging on the walls.

I'm going to compare that to what I do and say, okay, what's the difference? So it's also not so much about copying, because as I said, she was already inspired by the city's landscapes and nature. So it was really just a matter of adjusting her style and adding on some marketing that she wasn't doing before. It wasn't an overnight success, but now, as you can see, she's making a good living from it. And of course, she started this project while she was still working full-time in the service industry.

She did eventually quit her job, but not until she felt secure enough to do so. I will leave you with that today. Do remember, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Today's show notes, including some links to Ursula's work, are at sidehustleschool.com/292. I'll be back again tomorrow.

I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. [Music]