Kristin Cronic: How Kristin made space for artistic exploration and created better work/life balance. – ASIS 7

Jessica Craddock:

 I'm here with the lovely Miss Kristin Chronic to do our second artist interview success series interview because, as I am reposting these, Kristin mentioned that there's a lot that has changed since the last interview and she wanted to make sure that it really reflected where she is at in her art business.

And I thought that sounded exciting. So we're just gonna redo this interview for you, and if you really love listening to Kristin. You can go back to my blog. I'll have Julie link it so you can hear the first interview, but just know that it's a couple years outdated. So, Kristin, let's start with, let's paint a little picture if we can, even as far as a year ago or two years ago.

Where do you feel like you were at in your art business? What was going well? What were you struggling with? Let's just start there. If you could think that far back.

Kristin Cronic: That's hard to, there's a lot. So first, thank you so much for having me again. You're welcome. I just always appreciate your voice in my head and in my earbuds.

It sounds funny. Oh gosh. Okay. So two years ago, I think that's when we connected first actually. 'cause I was about to have my third baby and I was having a hard time with, managing all the things and honestly trying to build like, I was feeling really overwhelmed. A lot of things that I had planted, had blossomed and were demanding my watering and attention.

I was going to have a baby, which I'm sure a lot of your listeners are mothers, so they understand. And I knew like, she ended up being a really easy baby, which I'm grateful for, but that doesn't always happen. Um, so it's like, how am I going to keep this up? I can't, and I didn't, when this baby comes along, um, and basically just, a lot of things that were working all of a sudden I knew wouldn't be.

And I think I was starting to panic. Um, and I had this big goal of publishing a coffee table book that started five years ago now, and this was three years in whenever I wanted talk to you. And how you going to do that too? How am I going to fund it?

But now here we are, 2023. The book is out in the world and everything worked out great.

Jessica Craddock:  Amazing. I'm seeing your posts about it. It looks amazing, and your sweet baby girl!

Kristin Cronic: The baby is 18 months old and she's awesome, and she's actually about to go to care in a couple weeks. Some little mixed feel. I bittersweet about that.

I did love having your home, but it's time. Yeah. And lots changed. I finished my degree and now I'm teaching adjunct as well, which has been really fun. And there's just been a lot of transition, but All good stuff.

Jessica Craddock: Yeah. So, okay, so you already kind of segued into this, but 2023 you mentioned that you have the coffee table book. You're teaching.

[00:03:49] What do you feel is the biggest difference in your life now from two years ago?

Jessica Craddock: What do you feel like, besides not having a newborn anymore? What do you think the biggest difference in yourself, in your business, fill in the blank however you'd like, is between now and that time period.

Kristin Cronic: Oh, goodness. I mean, in some ways just having the change completed helps, like all the unknowns. Um, but I think what I really learned over the past couple of years was how important it was for me to build in margin, um, both in my schedule, which as a mom, I was learning that already. Like I, I can't rely on the time I have as much as I used to because it often gets interrupted, right. Kids get sick or whatever.

Um, but that also was like financially as well and like really building up a safety cushion there to where there was at the very least, there was more space between when I made a painting and when I needed to sell the painting. Um, and that was like, actually you helped me a lot with that, just this last.

Fall, spring, winter because we were moving as well. So I was like, here's another transition. And I was like, I need to, for one thing, clear some space out of storage. Like legitimately 'cause we're moving. But also I need to be able to pad a little bit of comfort in my, um, my bank accounts. That way I can kind of weather this transition.

And it ended up being a really great move because it was actually for the first time I. Being able to keep like four to five months of my pay on hand in a way that's like, and I've actually been able to maintain that. So that's awesome. Amazing for the summer to kind of get through all this, that what that's done is it's given me the space and the freedom to, either make some paintings just for fun, which may or may not work, um, to work on other projects and just to have a little bit of mental space to where I didn't feel quite the urgency to like sell paintings all the time.

I could allow those relationships to develop slowly.

Jessica Craddock: Okay, so one thing that I've always really respected about you is that you are really. You've got a great head for the numbers and you always pay attention, love numbers. I love the numbers and I think that's a weakness for a lot of artists because they almost avoid them, if not al almost is even the wrong word.

They avoid them as much as possible so that they don't feel like they're failing. Yeah.

 And one tool that I actually do really push inside my programs is knowing your numbers, because when you know your numbers, you can make a much more educated decision about like what you can be spending your time on, how much spaciousness you have. It's really empowering to get to that place, even though it's a little scary, I'm not gonna lie.

It's a little scary to look at your money, but you know what to do. And so I just wanted to like give you props for that.

Kristin Cronic: Thank you. It does help a lot. It's, that's kind of how I started was Okay, basically five years ago, like years went down to one income, okay, I'll do this for six months.

I can, we can handle that, let's go from there. And then six months turned into a year, turned into 18 months. And that's kind of how we kept doing it. And then slowly I started to supplement our income and it just went over time. And it makes it, at least makes it feel like you're a little bit more control over something that can sometimes be kind of unpredictable.

Art isn't always as steady as, working for the government, which is what I used to do.

Jessica Craddock: Right. Right.

Kristin Cronic: There's that.

Jessica Craddock: But at the same time, the more you know, the more information you have. So even if it's not steady or predictable, okay, well I did this thing and it brought in this much money and I did this thing, it brought in this much money and I didn't really do anything in between.

So I didn't really bring in any money. And you can start to see the patterns and make better choices from there.

[00:07:29] What is one practical tip that helps you feel like you do have that spaciousness in your bank account?

Jessica Craddock: This is a great little transition into my first question, which may or may not be the answer, but what is one practical tip that you can share with other artists in order to feel like you do have that spaciousness in your bank account?

Like what's one way that you have created that for yourself?

Kristin Cronic: Um, okay, this. I say this with a star, an asterisk. Okay. Um, I read the book Profit First a couple years ago. And there's like an occult following of this book now. So like, I feel like, like I say this with the greatest

Jessica Craddock: You can reference it.

Kristin Cronic: Yeah. I mean, but basically it's like the envelope system in your bank account. And I mean, I have kept pretty meticulous track of my numbers ever since I started on my expenses and on my income where it comes from. Um, and I would say like one of the hardest things was just figuring out. The breakdown of kind of like what I need to proportion off versus maybe somebody else.

And so those percentages will be different. But when I read that book, it was a light bulb moment. Um, and so because I have spreadsheets, but it was really nice to just look at my bank account and see, oh, okay, my studio budget is x amount, my, whatever it is.

And so, I mean, that's gonna be different for everybody. And I did take, I did look at a couple years of data for me to kind of get that estimate. And basically what I realized is I have two different categories of income streams. Like one is my original work, which is a lot better profit margin, so I have a lot more flexibility with that. And then the other one is basically products. I just put that in its own category. So if you're not familiar with Profit First, it's like essentially, like I said before, the envelope system where you sell a painting for a hundred dollars and then that percentage of that a hundred dollars immediately goes into certain pockets.

Envelopes, right? Or bank accounts. That would be for certain things, taxes, whatever. Um, owners pay profit, like that's the term that they use for paying yourself first. Um, And so basically what I learned is like I have my sell original paintings. That's its own breakdown of percentages that I had to come figure out what works.

And then when I sell products, which is like prints or other things, um, that has its own. So mine's a little bit more complicated 'cause I have like a couple, a lot of different legs to my business, which is all very different, which I had learn the hard way. You can't treat it all the same.

Um, but once I kind of figured that out and got a system that worked for. Um, it's made it so much easier. So now whenever it's time to make investments on, like, whatever it may be, I am very clear. It's like, for me it's like a very hard yes or no. Like is it in the budget, and is it in the plan? Because I keep track of all, everything that I owe throughout the year, between my software.

So I can tell, I'm like, okay if I have these coming up and this much anticipated income, which you can only plan so much for that so much, yeah. Yeah, I'm like, am I comfortable making this payment now with like what I'm looking towards six months down the road where I know, I'm entering the dry summer spell.

So, after the fall maybe, but not now. So it's just, I mean, that it can, I can definitely see how it's, I love numbers and I love spreadsheets, so I'm just like, I can't wait to dig on in. But once, once I got that figured out, that really helped. And so the book is helpful and kind of. At least getting kind of the gist of it.

Jessica Craddock: Yeah. I've read the book and I've, created all the bank accounts and I've used it for periods of time. And I do think that it's a great book. I'm not currently using that system. Yeah. Because it just was not the thing that I needed right now. But for someone who doesn't love numbers and spreadsheets, like what's one like little micro thing that they could do to start with that?

Kristin Cronic: It really just goes back to knowing your numbers, which actually here, one thing that helps, it's easy, that doesn't have to involve a spreadsheet, is like getting, I use QuickBooks, it's like the cheapest version too. I've never really needed more than that, and it does a pretty good job of automatically categorizing expenses. And so that right there, it's like, I don't have to worry about that, but I can see it. I'm like, oh, okay. Like that's my breakdown. I do double check it, but it's pretty good.

Jessica Craddock: So you use QuickBooks to help see like a picture of the past of what, um, what you have spent on this and what you have spent on that.

So that you can plan for the future.

That's a good one, correct.

Kristin Cronic: Yeah. And it's easy enough. Yeah.

Jessica Craddock: I'm not a huge fan of QuickBooks, but I have tried it. Um, that being said, like different softwares work for different people. Another one that you could try is called, You Need a Budget. It does a very similar thing and I believe it's.

I don't know, $60 a year or something like that. So if you're looking for a clear picture of what has worked for you, something like that might help speed that process up for you.

Kristin Cronic: Instead, you having to do it all yourself.

[00:12:21] What mindset tip helped you get past the overwhelm?

Jessica Craddock: Great. Okay, so question number two. What is a mindset tip that you would like to share with people that has helped you go from this overwhelmed to, I know I need to build in this space and the how? Like what kind of mindset shift did you need to use in order to get that done?

Kristin Cronic: Um, and just in general, because a lot of my overwhelm was coming from just a lot of personal change that needed, that was happening almost to us in a good way.

But, still.

Jessica Craddock: But really, but that's just like life, like that's always happening for everyone. And Yeah. Yeah. Life is happening to you.

Kristin Cronic: Yeah, it does. A lot of, I have and had, and still do a lot of creative goals and things that I want to make.

Getting very honest with myself on what it matters to me, what's important to me versus somebody else. Like that's, I mean that's, it's so basic, but it's so hard whenever, there's always voices telling you what you should want to, what you should think. And I will say like, Sometimes taking that quiet time to just reflect and to really think about what it is that you want to do.

And for me, a lot of it has to do with just honestly, like I want to make a lot of things. Like we joke, if I ever made a million dollars, I probably would not keep a dime. It would all fund all the projects I wanna do. And I'm like okay. And so, in that sense, finding what needs to happen, like prioritizing it in terms of timing and sometimes things need funding.

And then from there it's the, just keep showing up adage. I love that one. Like just keep showing up, making things and doing things. And sometimes what you make will become magic and sometimes it's not and that's fine. Um, and so it's a combination of that. It's like, You can only do so much at one time, but you also can't do anything if you don't show up. So a little bit of both.

Jessica Craddock: So , I have noticed recently that 90, maybe a hundred percent of the people that I work with, Either have diagnosed A D H D or have like a suspicion that I have some A D H D. And I know that you and I have had this conversation before where you're like, oh yeah. I'm all over the place.

I wanna do all the things.

Kristin Cronic: Yes.

Jessica Craddock: So for everyone who resonates with that, you mentioned quiet time, but like, how do you, Kristen, with all these ideas and all these things you wanna do, decide, what's the next thing I'm gonna do?

Kristin Cronic: It's a combination of systematic planning. Um, I kind of reflect on things maybe every quarter. I've tried to use the planners and I'm like, I'll be honest, at the end of March isn't always a great time for me to sit down and do this. So it's kind of more like, as it makes sense for me.

Um, I'll kind of vision cast. Um, usually at the end of the year in general, which the end of the year for me is October, so like October, November, I usually think about the next year.

Jessica Craddock: I like that.

Kristin Cronic: But like, just 'cause, I mean, naturally I have to plan a couple months out. I can't just plan in January for what I'm doing in January.

 Usually in the fall I'll do some like, really good coffee shop. Let's just like, what sounds good. Like, I'll listen, listen to Taylor Swift and just like, do whatever I wanna do and like what is exciting based off that. Um, and I have a fair amount of notebooks and journals of like, ideas and goals and like possible projects. I think I actually have a Trello board that's just like every time I have an idea just goes there and then it goes away.

Jessica Craddock: Nice.

Kristin Cronic: So I don't actually do it. That's actually a very practical one. Like, so once I kind of get this big things down, then they'll kind of push, pull things over.

I'm literally using Trello to do this. So I pretty much do all of my planning at this point online. But then I also have fun projects, and so I try to balance what I can reasonably do in a year with plenty of play space as well for those tangents to come in. And sometimes it means, Biting off more than I can chew. I definitely underestimated and say how big this particular project could be.

Um, but then sometimes, like over the years, that just takes practice of like, I don't particularly love doing super long form thing, which is why this book took me five years because I kept having to take just, do other things first. Um, and so there's that, and that's temperament. I think more than anything. Some people are probably much more comfortable and like to kind of be more linear and I'm, I get very bored after a couple of weeks. Yeah, so.

Jessica Craddock: So let me make sure I understand what your strategy is.

So every time you have an idea, you put it into one place so that they all live together. Your place happens to be Trello. And then every so often at the end of the year and quarterly ish, you go in there and look at that and say, what do I wanna be doing for the next three months?

Kristin Cronic: Three-ish months. Yeah.

And that will change as it happens. Um, but one thing that's helped, they'll kind of do like a one big thing a month. Like what's the one project I wanna finish this month? Or make substantial progress on this month. And that kind of trickles down into the weeks as well. I don't really do daily because as soon as it becomes a daily thing, then I won't do it.

Jessica Craddock: Then you're behind.

Kristin Cronic: And so basically it's just like if there's like this week, like for example this week for me, I'm getting ready to go back to teaching. So it's like the one thing I need to do this week is just get my syllabus all day and like that's my creative project for the week. And then whatever I do to rebel against that throughout the week is what it is.

Jessica Craddock: I love that. So I really respect like having a plan. This is how I work as well. I have a plan. And I find ways to make progress toward that plan every day, even if they're like five minute chunks. But I build in that space for, I call it like for me, but I like your word better. Like what's the rebellious thing I'm gonna do that is gonna allow me to say, no, I don't wanna work on that.

I don't wanna work on this and give myself space to do that as well, because if I don't, I'm unhappy. I am stressed out. I feel like I'm never gonna get anywhere. 'cause I'm just pressing and pressing. It doesn't feel like I'm getting anywhere. But when I have that space, it feels totally different. And then I'm more motivated to keep going.

Kristin Cronic: Yeah. To be honest, what I end up doing in those pockets ends up usually making the best work ever. Right.

Jessica Craddock: No that's like when all the inspiration comes and you're like, I should make this little quick video and then it blows up, or whatever happens. Like for me that's, my art is more the marketing side of things, but, um, I completely agree with that.

Kristin Cronic: Yeah. Yeah. Right now I'm doing these little paintings, and I'm having so much fun. And I'm not supposed to be doing them, and I'm like, aha. I'm working in our foyer right now. And I'm like, I'm not supposed to be painting, but I am anyway.

Jessica Craddock: By the way, if you are not on YouTube watching this, her foyer, I know she said it was a rental, but it's gorgeous.

Kristin Cronic: It's really pretty. It's our Airbnb for the next two months, so.

Jessica Craddock: Jealous. Okay.

Kristin Cronic: Very pretty.

[00:19:28] What advice do you have for someone who isn't sure they have what it takes to get to the next level?

Jessica Craddock: Last question, Kristin. Advice for someone who is not sure they can reach their next level open-ended. We can look at this like from your point of view. So someone who's not sure that they can take a big project and turn it into reality, or just general.

I don't know if I can do this advice. Where do you wanna go with it?

Kristin Cronic: It's hard when I don't know any context.

Jessica Craddock: This is a big project such as a book that you've been dreaming about for five years.

Kristin Cronic: Yes. I mean, it was five years of action. Um, we'll go into that. Um, I think that's seriously one of just showing up, like making a plan, continuously readjusting the plan. Um, honestly, a little bit of luck. There was definitely some of that as well. but I knew what I could control was finishing all the, this is a copy table book, so it has paintings.

And so like, like what I can control was finishing all the paintings, um, within whenever it took me to do it. But I had, like, I at least wanted to do so many a year. That's just kind of how I paced it out. Um, what, There were, but then there was so much else, like there were, this was published, but it was like a hybrid publisher.

So like I fronted the cost. And so before we even started, I had to come up with the money to pay the publisher and buy all the copies, which was like terrifying. Honestly, I had a very strong support team. Like I ended up having a designer help me with a website and like my audience was lovely, and so the pre-orders were strong.

They wouldn't quite cover all the costs, which was okay. I was able to actually secure a loan to finish it, and I should be able to pay that off once the first checks come in, which is awesome. Um, and so, I don't know, there's always a way to work around these things and to figure it out There's a lot of decisions that can't, like, may or may not work, I guess.

Um, because I had heard just some, it wasn't directed at me, but it was a general criticism of like using a hybrid publisher like this. This was someone else, you could have tried harder and gotten it out there. And I was like, I know for me personally I did a lot of research and this particular publisher, like it felt like the right fit.

Like I had a very specific goal for how it would look and feel, and a lot of the ones that my, of my niche would've fit into, they probably wouldn't have given me that much control. So that was a big reason why I'm like, I know it's worth it. And I also don't wanna take two more years to find a publisher.

Like there's a bit of a timing thing here too, and there's so many different decisions and not everyone's gonna work. But it'll be okay, and you can only control what you can control.

Jessica Craddock: Well, and to your point about just continuing to show up and having a little bit of luck, I really believe that universe, God, whatever your word is, like if you have to prove that you want the thing in order for them, To give you the luck, like you have to show up and show up and show up, and then when you feel like, oh, I'm just about to crash and burn, then the luck comes in.

And then you can, and then you're like, okay, I can keep going. Yeah. But like you have to be the one to initiate it. It's not just gonna come to you. And so

Kristin Cronic: For sure, yeah. And leaning into whatever help is available, like I, there was so much of this process, like by the time I got the book done, it was last, I think September was when I gave them my final words and everything, and paintings. And it only was published in June, and so that was such a long time of I can't control any of that yet. You're trying to balance when to start pre-orders and all this stuff, and like when money's due and then there's that long process of just nothingness.

How do we talk about this? Then it's out in the world and there's only, like, for me, there's only one of me and. I just, with my family situation with the move situation, there's only so much in person things I can do at the moment. Like I can't be there as much as I would love to be there, but my publisher was able to leverage their marketing team to kind of get into some niche.

Um, like there's this really great email newsletter that, it's like local news for this area, and it's like the funniest thing ever. And like they put me on the, like the title subject line of that. And like in that one day it's like, oh my gosh, that was so cool. And it's just like you Yeah. Like finding as little ways to, I couldn't have probably done that on my own, but because the publisher had, it worked.

Jessica Craddock: Well, you said you, you brought up that it was a really specific niche, so why don't you actually do a little pitch for your book right now. Like, tell us what that niche is for because while someone listening might not relate to that, they might know someone who would adore your coffee table book. So, pitch me.

Kristin Cronic: so this book, it's called A Midshipman's Journey and it's a coffee table book of paintings and prose that are talking about the journey of transformation from civilian to officer that happens at the US Naval Academy. Um, and that's my alma mater. That's where I went to school.

And I was in the Navy for six years after I graduated. And it was my goal from the very beginning to one day go back and talk about this story. And I really, and basically like. It's centered around this. And so there's probably 150 ish paintings about these little moments. But really it's about a journey of transformation, which I think almost everybody who's a human who has a heartbeat, has had a journey of transformation.

Um, and so it actually has an exhibit that corresponds with it that's been a couple of different places. And currently it's living in a veterans gallery in Ohio. It's a museum. I've been up there a couple times for that as well. And just to see the spectrum of people who come to visit.

Like some are associated with the military, some are not, but to them to see like people come to the paintings identify with their version of those moments. And it closely follows the hero's journey, which is a framework that was pioneered by Joseph Campbell. And I just find entertaining that how it, like, I really, I've always just loved that the idea of journey and like human change.

Jessica Craddock: That's like every movie, ever.

Kristin Cronic: Every movie ever.

Jessica Craddock: Everybody loves that story.

Kristin Cronic: We all love that story. And so having the paintings kind of correspond with that, and the book does too.

And so it's basically using paintings in these little one inch windows. And um, but then also as I was writing it, I was, it's not just about that, I also include like those artist notes because I was like, there's actually two journeys happening here. There's the process of making this as well. And so I allow the, that particular part to also pop in as like the side. Every so often there's that part that's acknowledging that, like I also painting this as we're talking and like, here's kind of like some artistic decisions that went into this and why, because I think that's always important to understand.

We have the infinite amount of decisions as artists we can make and like, why did I choose this particular format? Why a book? Why all these things? But then also kind of the process of making it and that whole thing during a pandemic. There's a little note in there too. So it's, that's what it's about. It's about journey.

Jessica Craddock: That was such a good pitch. I wanna go buy one now. Send me a link. I'm sure I can find someone who I want to give it to, but I want to read it first.

Um, okay. Kristin, this is lovely. I'm so glad we did this.

Kristin Cronic: Thank you.

Jessica Craddock: Thank for taking the time to do it again with me. 

Kristin Cronic: Thank you so much.

Jessica Craddock: Any final things you wanna put out there?

Kristin Cronic: Oh gosh. Just, I guess thanks for continuously sharing your expertise with the world. It helps. Like if I as an artist, if I could just stay in my little creative world all the time, I would, but when we can't and it's life. So it's always helpful to have those people I can come back to and be like, oh yeah, I should probably think about this.

Jessica Craddock: You are so welcome. I love doing it. Okay, so Kristen, where would you love people to connect with you, whether it's your website, your email list, your Instagram, whatever, and also where could they find the book, since we talked in depth about it.

Kristin Cronic: Um, I do love Instagram, but I have really taken to email over the years and just sharing kind of what's going on in a more like, focus curated way. I probably email maybe twice a month. So that's a good one.

Yeah, we can include links. Yes. K R i S t i n c r o n i c.com Yes. Um, and then the book can be found. So I actually, I do have another alias that I paint under, so it's technically under that alias. I don't talk about it as much here. Um, but I have its own website and it is A Midshipman's Journey.com.

So we can include a link in the notes if you wanna check it out.

Jessica Craddock: Absolutely. I love this talk. Thank you again Ms. Kristin.

Kristin Cronic: Thank you for having me.

Jessica Craddock: You're welcome..