Are you making beautiful things and want to build a life that allows you to follow your creative passions? Do you want to take your creative hobby to the next step or have you completed an arts course and want to know how to use all that learning to earn a living?

Starting a creative maker business can be challenging when you don’t know where to start.

In this course, over three evenings, artist Lea Durie will guide participants through the basic steps of launching or building a creative business.

Course Outline:

Week One: Idea to Product:

 Why start a maker business?

 Understanding the different ways to build a creative business and what could be right for

you.

 What is your product?

 Understanding your customers, or your niche.

 Building a professional and recognisable brand.

Week 2: Creating an Income

 Understanding the different ways and places to sell your work.

 Knowing how to price your work.

 Sustainability through different revenue streams.

 Getting a handle on income and financial management - insurances, ABNs and spreadsheets.

 Planning out your year and makes.

Week 3: Getting it out there

 How to build a beautiful look and feel that is consistent with your brand.

 The importance of great visual images.

 How to build a profile for you and your work.

 How to market yourself using social media and other platforms.

 Wellbeing and Community.

Artist Bio:

Ceramic artist Lea Durie has built a successful maker business, firstly as a side hustle and then as a full time career. Before that Lea was a in a leadership role in government working in project management and design, mentoring team members and others across the service to build careers that worked for them. Lea is now using these skills to help others build successful maker businesses.

Support Artists and Learn from the Best

Craft + Design Canberra Anytime workshops provide an opportunity for audiences to learn from the unique skillsets of our members: individuals who are highly regarded in their fields as artists, designers, and craftspeople.

Craft + Design Canberra prides itself on paying fair rates of pay to our artists as recommended by NAVA (the National Association for the Visual Artists). Our artists are the best in their fields and deserve fair renumeration. Audiences attending our activities learn from the best.

Craft + Design Canberra is a not-for-profit membership-based organisation supporting artists, craft practitioners, designers and makers at every stage of their careers. Craft + Design Canberra Anytime workshops are designed to create opportunities for our members to showcase their skills, engage with community, and earn incomes.

Image: Spoon making class run at Koitoya with Nobuyuki Ohashi Photo: Hiroshi Yamaguchi, 2023.