
So I am taking a bit of time away at the moment to plan for the coming months in terms of the work I am doing as well as trying to expand and grow what I am doing. Not that there are any more hours in the day! As well as a having a young family I have lot of other things, other than pottery, that are making demands on my time at the moment. So in this time away I am trying to sort out how I can work a bit smarter and also try and increase my earning potential. All sounds very business like for me! Basically I need to set things up so they can take care of themselves a bit and earn me some income at the the same time, eg renting out studio space without me being there all the time. How that looks and how I am going to make it work is the hard bit!
I do have so many things that I am doing but not all of them are producing an income. Some are things I need to do for my professional development and others are definitely more creative led, others I just need to be a bit stricter with my time!
I do love what I do. My greatest fear is having to go back into the classroom, as a primary school teacher! I love teaching, and I loved working with small children but the workload and pressure for results now is beyond a joke. These are people with minds not some measurable units that have to perform to set targets! I know this isn't exclusive to teaching as well. As a primary school teacher, more so than with older age groups, you are so much more than just a teacher. You have to teach the whole curriculum and not just one subject. You have so many areas that you need to be responsible for, not only in your classroom but throughout the school. There was a T shirt a few years ago that listed all the things a primary school teacher does, nose wiper, shoe lace tier, pe kit changer, finder of lost things, english expert, exam marker, etc etc, without saying what the list was for. Then it ended with but you can call me teacher. I loved it. But to be able to be my own boss and teaching something I love all the time is just such a pleasure and a privilege.
I teach an evening class (as well as classes in my own studios), at Suffolk New College on a Wednesday evening and I love it. There isn't the pressure to perform. In fact it is called leisure learning now! Not an evening class. All the people in the classes I've had have been lovely and there has always been a really keen to learn and a creative vibe going on. I just hope and pray I can carry on doing this and more. So the planning I am putting in now is with the express aim of being able to do that, and to continue to be able to show the creativity and share the God given gifts that I have.
The image is a vase of roses that I added honesty to. The lovely people where I am staying had put them on the windowsill. Might become a thing. Vases of flowers on windowsills
Karlx
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