I just want to push us right now to all think a little bit more like Erica Tighe.

I for one feel the struggle of being in a creative industry and trying to make ends meet. I fall into mental traps all the time. “No one wants to pay for good design, it’s just not valued,” or “I didn’t get started early enough, I never went to school for this…” and other stupid bs like that. While I’m making excuses for myself, struggling to figure out what to do, Erica is over here making things.

I don’t want to make any assumptions here about Erica’s financial position, but I can say this: Erica has a lot more chances that I’ll give her my money than I have of her returning the favor. Why? Because she’s creating products.

Part of the creative gift is the ability to see things that could be that aren’t, coupled with the willingness to do something about it. Erica is not only one of the people responsible for the amazing visuals for “Blessed is She,” (Client Work) but she has recently put up a calligraphy class on skillshare (Teaching), has an online store with 30 products in it, and just to get at the rest of the 2 percent of us that didn’t already feel like total peons by now, she just released these ridiculously great Catholic Saint Peg Dolls on Envato (Products).

People, there are a lot of ways to make money with our craft, and client work is only one of them. I would love to see the people on this group take a page out of Erica’s calligraphy book and create PRODUCTS with their skills. Good work Erica. Way to inspire us and make us feel totally insufficient at the same time.

Ps. If you need a store to sell your new products on, www.PetersSquare.com is the new cool hip place to be.