My first year of full time creative work

This January, I've now been doing my creative work full time for an entire year and it's been an absolute blast so far! Making a career change in your 30's is a bit scary and I have so many takeaways and learnings from 2025. However, I'm so glad I made the leap - I have felt more myself than ever before, which is an incredibly lucky position to be in! I keep pinching myself. **Last year, I:** 〰 Completed a Dahl fellowship with Eucalypt Australia 〰 Published more cartoons and written pieces with The Guardian than ever before. 〰 Launched into being a graphic recorder and scribe at conferences and was lucky to do this work for a full day at the Australia and Pacific Youth Climate Dialogue in Canberra. 〰 I had work selected to be in the Museum of Australian Democracy's yearly political cartooning exhibition Behind the Lines at Old Parliament House again. 〰 Conference presentations including for the COCE International Conference on Environmental Communication in Hobart. 〰 I ran comic art workshops, including for Sutherland Council's Canopy Fest and Australian Conservation Foundation's 60th year anniversary celebrations. 〰 I did a tonne of awesome commissions (thank you to everyone who got me to draw things!) 〰 I launched a Patreon! 〰 I was on a panel at Papercuts Comic Art festival in Adelaide and had a stall at the zine fair. 〰 I spoke to the Commons Social Change Library about my art and artivism (listen here) It was a wonderful start to a new career. I'm well aware that there will be peaks and troughs in freelance work, and I'm starting this year with fewer big commissions. However that might give me the chance to take stock and think of what projects I want to build in 2026 for myself. Let's see... ![](/jessharwood/IMG_0194%202.jpg)

AI ‘art’ is boring, soulless theft – and when I see it as an artist I see red