Issue #81 "What do you do"?

It's complicated...on embracing the messy joy of being and doing many things.

Hello there! We are working on a website refresh at the moment so we’ve been thinking a lot about what we do and how to organise the many strands of our work into something easy to tell other people about. For years we have tried to simplify things, to “find our niche” or whatever the internet tells us we must do in order to be successful. But finally we have decided that our niche is that we do loads of different things and we’re pretty good at them too. This post is an account of the journey that led us to where we are today and perhaps a useful insight into some of the challenges of living creatively. Are you someone that does a lot of different things? How do you juggle all the pieces of the puzzle? Is there a unifying thread that ties everything together? We’d love to know so drop us a line in the comments…

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Like a tree, our work has many branches…

So, what do you do?

The question used to strike fear into my heart. Even in simpler times when I only did one thing for work, I loathed the interrogation. I was just an illustrator back then and while it seemed perfectly acceptable to me that drawing and creating things was a valid (and valuable) profession, other people seemed to struggle with the idea. Despite the fact that illustrations are everywhere and on everything, I would frequently have to explain what illustration was, and why things needed pictures on them. I would also have to explain that yes, I did get paid to do this.

For a while, I did ok as an illustrator. Although commissions always fluctuated, I was working for myself creating artwork for magazines, skateboard graphics, advertising campaigns and clothing brands. It was what I had always wanted to do whilst growing up, and I was actually doing it. How we measure success is highly subjective, but seeing my work in The New York Times and on skateboard decks for Foundation Skateboards were significant milestones, and I was making just about enough money to avoid having to get a ‘real job’. Which I’m led to believe has to be something that takes place between the hours of 9-5, Mondays to Fridays and which you loathe having to get up for every day.

The question got even harder to answer when we moved to the woods and I started looking after the land and woodland on the small estate surrounding our home. I was an illustrator, groundskeeper and woodsman - disparate things with tensions between them that even I struggled to reconcile, let alone explain how these things fitted together to people I didn’t know. And then came woodworking. And teaching workshops and making things for our store and looking after a vineyard and then practical conservation contracting, plus the marketing, photography, social media stuff and brand partnerships. What did I do? Don’t ask…

For a while I lied.

I told a hairdresser that I was a gardener because it was easier than having to explain everything. I also found that I changed who I was depending on who asked. I’m not sure why - was it because I worried that people would think I wasn’t good enough at each individual role? A jack or all trades, master of none? Picking one thing made it easier to talk to people. It was easier to talk to a forester about forestry than about illustration, but I always felt conflicted as to whether I should reveal my true identity or not.

Over time I got better at it. As my skill level grew in each area I grew more confident. I could be a forester and an illustrator and be good at both things too. Once I started being honest, I was pleasantly surprised at how interested people were with all facets of my work. I had not been giving people enough credit, subconsciously making judgements about the way people think. I met others who worked in practical roles that had once been artists or writers, and I met designers and illustrators who yearned for outdoor work and a connection to the land.

Despite the many seemingly disparate strands of my (and eventually Emma’s) work, there was a thread that loosely tied everything together - a love of Nature and the outdoors. Even our design and illustration work became centred around Nature and we gave up working for people whose values didn’t align with our own. All of these strands got swallowed up under the Miscellaneous Adventures banner - our design studio, our online store, our workshops, our writing and photography and our conservation and woodland contracting. Miscellaneous by name, miscellaneous by nature.

A few (but not all) of the things we do...

Although we believed in what we did, it felt like a hard sell to others. We constantly re-jigged our website and re-wrote our bios to simplify things and make it easier to explain. The internet told us we needed to find our niche. To stick to just one thing and market the hell out of it. Our feeds should be consistent and organised, even though life is chaotic, messy and beautiful in its variety.

When we moved to the Lake District (nearly three years ago now) things got temporarily easier to explain. I had a job. A ‘real’ one that required me going to the same place every day for the same number of hours each week. I liked my job, but I didn't like how it came to define who I was.

It’s interesting that people typically ask us what we do for work, and not how we live our lives, don’t you think?

Full time employment didn't last long - one year later, I was thrust back into the world of finding work for myself. This was a good chance to reinvent ourselves again. We managed to narrow our skills down to three things that were likely to generate work: photography, woodland management and woodworking. But each time we try to constrain ourselves like this, we yearn for the things we eliminated. Somehow, as if the universe knows, work that brings us back to who we are lands in our laps - and who are we to fight with what the universe wants?

There’s no denying that there is often tension between all these threads. It can be hard to feel creative after a day of chainsawing. It’s a lot to juggle logistically. And why does it always rain on the days we have to work outside and be sunny on the days we are bound to our desks? But the result is a life where we are fulfilled in almost all aspects.

Finally, after years of trying to streamline who we are and what we do, we are happily embracing the fact that we are multi-skilled and have no desire to conform to one way of working or living. Our sense of purpose unifies each seemingly random offshoot - to live a life inspired by Nature, creativity and adventure.

So this is us - we are artists, designers, photographers, teachers, naturalists, builders, makers, writers, craftspeople, land workers and probably a few other things that we haven’t tried yet.

So feel free to ask us what we do - but be warned, you might be there a while…

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Well, that’s all for this week. Our scheduling has been all over the place lately (see above for why!) we’re still aiming for Fridays but we’ll see how that goes, we appreciate you reading and supporting us here.

With warmest wishes,

Andrew, Emma and Benji x

P.S If you’d like to buy us a coffee to help us keep doing our many jobs, you can do so here! Thank you!