Vision: Running for Office

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Today, I’m interviewing 2 candidates running for office here in Western North Carolina. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara is a North Carolinian, Christian minister, founding director of the Campaign for Southern Equality (CSE), and mother of 3. Service and faith are the driving forces in her work, from teaching in prisons to founding an organization to advocate for LGBTQ equality across the Deep South. By showing up—especially in small towns—and telling the stories of families, Jasmine’s organization (CSE) helped win marriage equality in North Carolina and Mississippi. She is running to unseat Republican Madison Cawthorne for US Congress. 

Maggie Ullman was Asheville’s first Sustainability Director. Her leadership has resulted in over $5 million of new grant dollars to communities in the American South who work with their local government to address climate change equitably. She is a candidate for Asheville City Council.  

Together, both Maggie and Jasmine want to bring people together to incite change and protect what’s precious. 

In this episode, Maggie, Jasmine and I talk about why local elections are so important, how you can get involved, and how even the tax code is proof that representation matters. 

Also mentioned in today’s episode: 

• Jasmine’s background and vision 

• Maggie’s background and vision

• Why the tax code represents only the people who were in the room when it was passed

• Why local elections matter and what city government does 

• County level politics and what it includes 

• How priorities translate from local to national politics 

• How you can get involved in your local area to get candidates you care about elected

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and share it! 

Links:

Connect with Jasmine and Maggie: 

Jasmine’s website: https://www.jasmineforcongress.com/

Maggie’s website: https://www.maggie4avl.com/

Paddy Johnson: Real Talk on How to Succeed in the Arts

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Can you solve the art world’s problem’s for us in one sentence, Paddy?

“Ask for more.”

Paddy Johnson is a writer, educator and the founder of VVrkshop, an online platform designed to help artists and art professionals connect with other artists, get more shows, residencies and grants.  

In today’s episode, Paddy and I talk about some of the inherent problems facing professional artists today and why it’s so important to build a strong network and community when working as a career artist.  Paddy unlocks the real reason you should be sending a weekly newsletter, makes a startling confession, talks about her “24 hour fix,” and even makes me cry.

Also mentioned in today’s episode: 

• Conservatism in the art world 3:41

• Finding the right program for you as an artist 7:38

• Income inequality in the art world 12:00

• Why you should be asking for more money as an artist 16:36

• The importance of a network and community when working as an artist 22:01

• A good solution to art problems 26:30

• Confidence as an art professional 27:30

• The real key to why you should send out your weekly newsletter 31:00

• How to effectively network and build relationships 33:07

• Paddy’s confession 36:00

• VVrkshop and Netvvrk and the reason why Paddy started her programs 41:47

• The 24-hour fix 48:00

• Paddy makes me cry 49:00

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and share it.

Links:

W.A.G.E., Working Artists and the Greater Economy. 

Connect with Paddy: 

Paddy’s membership: https://www.vvrkshop.art/

Watch Paddy’s free class How to Get More Shows

Erika Hess: Podcasting, Art, Motherhood and Widening the Circle

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Links:

Erika’s work

Erika’s podcast

Erika’s membership

Money Story: Lex Ritchie

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Lex Ritchie is a tarot reader and folk magical educator. You can find more about their work at www.thelexritchie.com IG @thelexritchie

HC: Who are you, what are your pronouns, and what do you do?

I’m Lex Ritchie, I use they/them pronouns, and I’m a tarot reader and folk magical educator. I help folks connect to their magic so they can make change in their lives and in their world.

HC: What brought you to a place where you wanted to learn how to get your money stuff together?

LR: It was really starting my own business that prompted it. I’m not someone who has a ton of experience with money. I grew up working class, not affluent. For a large part of my adult life, I didn’t make enough money to have to file taxes. By the time I started a business, I had never filed taxes. The other half of my adult life was filled with bad tax experiences--I had terrible luck with taxes. One year my partner's employer was committing tax fraud. Another year a number was wrong on our W2, and caused an enormous headache, and another year I was paid differently because I was a grad student. 

I went from making too little to file to owing taxes every year after that. When I started my business, I needed to figure this out and know what I’m doing.

Like a lot of people who go from being poor to having some money, there’s this pain around that. There is a shame of not knowing. A shame that you have to know these things now. I needed to go into this business with my eyes open, not giving in to the past trauma or knee-jerk responses I had before. I wanted to build my business and grow it into something that can support me. I had to take responsibility towards my business, like taxes. I wanted to take personal responsibility towards that.

HC: Is there anything that being in Money Bootcamp has taught you, or that has changed for you?

LR: It’s funny. I’ve been a part of Money Bootcamp for two years. I wouldn't at any point have been able to pinpoint that I know these things or that my relationship to money is changing, until I was talking to a friend who is switching to contract work from full time employment, because she has a baby. And I’m like, “hey, there are these tax benefits, and she’s like hey, how do you know all this?”

The fact I pay my quarterly taxes, I’m in this position where I know enough to ask the right questions, I don’t have to just go along with it. I know enough to advocate for myself - it provides me with knowledge and not just garbled nonsense. 

I come from a science background. My major was in science communication, so I know a lot about communication.

One thing that comes from having greater financial literacy is that I, as someone who owns my own business, have to pay taxes out of my account every quarter. It’s not automatic. Better financial literacy means knowing when I have enough, and don’t. Budgeting. That’s been part of this larger effort in my life of how to navigate money. Because I have this thing--I didn’t have money growing up, so I never feel like I have enough. I’ve learned how to navigate what I need, earmark for savings, and figure what is ok. Both my partner and I are chronically ill. Figuring out that my partner will not be able to do his work forever. Ensuring ok-ness with that. Past baggage from not knowing when we had enough. 

It’s easy to hoard. That is the default. When you grew up feeling like you needed to hoard money, its easy to do, because there’s a cultural default. [Having a sense of enough-ness is] helping me live my values in that way.

Having enough: for me, when I was in engineering, I studied sustainability. Sustainability is important to me. One reason I left grad school is that when we talk about sustainability, we aren't’ critiquing the ways we talk about progress, money, and the economy. The ways those feed sustainability and feed structures of unsustainability. The same goes for money and my values--I value sustainability and abundance. There’s a ceiling to that. It looks different. It manifests differently for different people. I’m recognizing that sufficiency for myself. Growing up poor, when you're stuck in insufficiency for so long, it’s hard to recognize when you really do have enough. For me, numbers make sense. Seeing it in my numbers was helpful, and allowed me to see that it is sustainable, that I could share more, and that saving wasn’t just pointless--I was able to build a cushion.

HC: Is there anything else you’d like other people to know?

LR: Something I want to talk about is to shout out to you, and how amazingly you hold space for how complicated and stressful and wrapped up in trauma and injustice taxes are. 

When we had our conversation last year, I was like “I have perennial problems around taxes” and you were like “none of that is your fault.”

You can learn more about what Lex does at their website: https://thelexritchie.com/ 

Does Anyone Make a Living Doing Public Art? A Money Story with Liz LaManche

Liz LaManche (she/they) is an artist on a mission to add more color and fun to the world through big art in public places and small art in weird places.

Hannah Cole: Tell me about what brought you to a place where you wanted to learn more about taxes and getting your money organized.

Liz LaManche: I spent a bunch of years in software doing UX/UI consulting, so I had practice doing that, and getting decent rates, and doing contract negotiations, so that wasn’t the hard part. The hard part has been figuring out what artists get paid, and all that learning I talked to you about. Being avoidant about money in general. Not wanting to know my budget, not keeping track of receipts, even though at the end of the year I had this big terrible accounting project of tallying all my receipts. 

You’re the first person who has been able to teach me in a calm, accessible way. I had old men accountants who said they would teach me, but then actually just asked for my numbers which they would just enter into their system. When I would ask them questions, they would say, “Just read the instructions on the form.”
The fact that you’re able to realize in a psychological way what is going on with people, gently and realistically, has been really nice.

This was part of a program I set myself where I was intending to get better at the financial thing, and set myself up better. I’m examining, “What are my attitudes? What is keeping me from getting specific? From actually tackling this stuff?” You helped with the specifics--as in, here’s how to do this and that.

I think psychologically, I bounce between overfunctioning and underfunctioning. I can’t deal, and then I bounce back. I have a tendency to want to get everything done perfectly, then I can’t deal anymore. You’ve been very helpful about putting it all in perspective. You say, if you improve one thing, you’re headed in the right direction. It doesn’t need to be all perfect immediately. 

I would go from ignoring my receipts for months, to “I have to enter every 50 cent coffee I ever get into this spreadsheet.”

HC: What did you observe in your transition from consulting work to the art world?

LL: Being up front with clear communication took practice. I got good at writing contracts that were basically in English that people normally speak, but take care of contingencies that both parties actually care about. You need to spell it all out in an understandable way, and to have it covered in a contract. A lot of my artwork is commissions and consulting.

HC: So you really have to use contracts for that. 

LL: Yeah. You have to lay out what is going to be done in this project.

HC: Can you describe your art?

LL: I’m doing public art and murals. I’m also working with an organization that helps cities and towns work on their pedestrian access, safer streets, bikeways, and designing asphalt art. I make artistic crosswalks, intersections, and pathways. I get to use my architecture background, making urban environments more beautiful, and sustaining human beings. It has been helpful coming from being an architecture major. First, you have to figure out what the client wants and needs, and what environment the client is in. Then you design something bespoke to solve those problems and make something that is both beautiful and usable within its environment and neighborhood. 

Business skills have helped a lot in the project work I’m doing. Being able to form a relationship with clients where they feel taken care of, and they are sure I know what I’m doing, because I approach things like a pro, I know what the issues are, and I can get them a solution that works for them. I show up and behave like a professional. People dealing with artists are a bit afraid about that.

HC: Has there been anything particularly helpful that you have learned?

LL: I had some habits that helped me already. I can do math, I had business bank accounts, I can use spreadsheets. But others you helped me a lot with were--I couldn’t face my receipts, and keep a running tally of what was going on. I couldn’t look at my actual financial situation. I would just try to get money coming in and hope that things worked out. Then I would panic if the account balance got too low. 

Following your program, I’ve been able to get a handle on things, know where I’m at, develop some good habits (if not make and stick to an actual plan). Things like getting more methodical about putting money aside, being able to check on it, that sort of thing. Being able to get on top of the quarterly tax thing, and what I should be doing taxwise, has made me a lot happier and calmer. 

HC: That stuff provokes so much anxiety.

LL: It’s just astonishing that no other tax person has gotten me to do quarterlies ever.

HC: I’m so proud

LL: One of the things I’m working on now is trying to learn more about what artists are getting paid, in my field and in others. I want to learn more about what’s realistic. Because there’s so much secrecy around money all the time. That doesn’t serve us well.

I spent some time in circus performance doing aerial dance, and there’s a lot of talk there about “charge what you’re worth” and “don’t undercut others,” and how to get people a living wage.

The same is true in performance. There’s the thing or service you’re selling, and then there’s the years of work and study that made you good at doing that thing. There's more overhead than people expect.

I would love for art to be a sustainable thing for more people. Because it's such an important thing for our culture, and for being able to sustain ourselves as a society.

There’s awe and beauty--those uplifting feelings. In public art, too - you’re getting beautiful things out to people who are just getting through their day, in what would otherwise be a dull streetscape. It might make their day better.

I’ve heard about people quoting extremely low rates, basically doing things for free. That’s problematic because it leads to that being the expectation. And there should be a graduated scale based on your experience, and the type of work and that sort of thing. But that’s the question that we run into in circus arts, too. There has to be a place for people to start, but people commissioning work need to realize there’s a difference in the final quality, too.

I’m hoping that there is a tier for professional artists to stay professional and make a career of it.

People look at me as someone who is successful, because I’ve done projects that are known around town. [But I’m still wondering], “Does anyone get a living wage doing public art?”