Start getting paid like the expert you are within six months
The Autonomous Creative Incubator
The Incubator is the artist-centered program where self-employed creatives design a sustainable, profitable business rooted in their creative expertise.
APPLICATION DEADLINE: MARCH 24, 2023
What happens when you design a creative business on purpose?
Find out directly from our students!
“By the end of the year, I should be able to pull in enough to run the house on just my money.”
“I was feeling very guilty about not being able to bring in what I felt was really just my market rate. I'm not even asking for a lot. I just wanted to be paid for the skills that I had. And even that was not happening.
Now I'm at a place where I can very easily see that by the end of the year, I should be able to pull in enough to run the house on just my money.”
Avantika Hari-Agrawal
Filmmaker and marketing strategist
From $10,400 in 2021 to $24,000 in 2022. And the year isn't over yet.
“In 2021 I booked somewhere around $10,400 in portraits. This year I'm in the $24,000 range. And it's only the end of August, so who knows what the end of the year will bring.
I have a plan for my business now and that sense of... control isn't the right word, because control feels really tight, but a command of this information that I can use to make better choices, use to make better decisions, use to create strategies.”
Sarah Marie Lacy
Artist and portrait painter
From needing help with studio rent to fully funded through the end of the year
“My studio rent will be paid right through the end of this year, which is just mind blowing for me. I have gone from this slightly humiliating position of having to ask my husband, can you put money in my business account because I have to pay my studio rent? To that business account actually having funds coming directly from my clients. That's never been the case for me before, so it feels really good. I'm finally growing up, making a living.”
Deirdre Colgan Jones
Artist, mother, and coach
“By the end of the year, I should be able to pull in enough to run the house on just my money.”
“I was feeling very guilty about not being able to bring in what I felt was really just my market rate. I'm not even asking for a lot. I just wanted to be paid for the skills that I had. And even that was not happening.
Now I'm at a place where I can very easily see that by the end of the year, I should be able to pull in enough to run the house on just my money.”
Avantika Hari-Agrawal
Filmmaker and marketing strategist
From $10,400 in 2021 to $24,000 in 2022. And the year isn't over yet.
“In 2021 I booked somewhere around $10,400 in portraits. This year I'm in the $24,000 range. And it's only the end of August, so who knows what the end of the year will bring.
I have a plan for my business now and that sense of... control isn't the right word, because control feels really tight, but a command of this information that I can use to make better choices, use to make better decisions, use to create strategies.”
Sarah Marie Lacy
Artist and portrait painter
From needing help with studio rent to fully funded through the end of the year
“My studio rent will be paid right through the end of this year, which is just mind blowing for me. I have gone from this slightly humiliating position of having to ask my husband, can you put money in my business account because I have to pay my studio rent? To that business account actually having funds coming directly from my clients. That's never been the case for me before, so it feels really good. I'm finally growing up, making a living.”
