BUSINESS TIME

Hello!

I’m still beaming from Mira and I’s art show opening on Friday. If you came out and drank all our beer, thank you <3. A group of young, hot, goth people showed up which is my personal measure of the success of an event.

It took most of Friday to transform a whole bunch of painfully white walls into our cozy little show. There are six million volunteers and artists to thank, but I’m going to wait and get into that in a future newsletter so I can go on and on about Max’s engineering brain hanging top-heavy sculptures. If you missed the absolutely packed party, you can see everyone’s work at the West Town Chamber of Commerce through Friday, June 20. No DJ though :( but maybe bring your headphones so you can blast Talking Heads to try and recreate the magic.

Today, I’d like to throw on a trendy blazer over my Old Navy Pixie Pants and go business mode. A few weeks ago I wrote about How I formed an LLC for Morning Brew’s Sunday edition. Should you form an LLC? Sure! Do you need to? Idk, maybe. Was it easy? Yes, but it was a whole thing.

The piece is a pretty comprehensive step-by-step guide, but I didn’t have the word count to get into why I did it. And the best reasoning I can give is that I’m an absolute pervert for planning. I love paperwork and it makes me feel safe when I have a google sheet open.

The only thing an LLC does is offer you some legal protections by separating your personal assets from your business liabilities. I’m not a lawyer, but it’s like if someone wanted to sue you because your weird art installation fell and crushed their arm 127-hours-style, the fact that you put up the show through your LLC means they probably couldn’t come after your home or your savings account. It’s not a catchall for doing crimes (for rich people it kind of is), but it felt worth it to me since most of my shows/events do involve hanging heavy things with fishing line in warehouses.

It is also a whole thing

It doesn’t take long to file for an LLC. I think the whole process took me 20 minutes to fill out the form online and pay $153 to the Illinois Secretary of State. But filing for an LLC was a part of a big huge business move I was figuring out that involved getting business insurance ($100/month), commissioning a logo, launching my newsletter, and setting up a business banking account/credit card to make my life easier when I produce shows.

The banking stuff was way harder than it needed to be. Initially, I opened a credit card and account with American Express because they didn’t charge a fee for their business checking account, but then it was kind of a mess because I had to download two different confusing apps and I couldn’t use Zelle (the main payment method of pretty much everything I do). So, I got overwhelmed and just went back to Chase where I do my personal banking. 

Chase charges a $15 monthly fee unless you keep $2,000 in the account at all times, which luckily I had enough saved to park some cash in that account to waive the fee. Plus, Chase’s business credit cards have some goooood intro offers. If you spend $6,000 in your first six months, you get $750 in cash back. I was saving all my big purchases like a new fancy camera, a serger, getting my sewing machine repaired, etc so I could hit that limit. Plus, finance and accounting stuff can get wildly overwhelming really fast. I know there are probably better deals out there, but I did not want 3 different apps and a billion different cards that I had to keep track of. Plus, my banking needs are super simple: I just need a credit card and zelle to pay for the vast amount of fabric and paint I’m buying.

• Nerdwallet has a comparison chart for everything you can think of, including best business credit cards.

My plea. I know I just spent the last few paragraphs complaining about how annoying it was to figure all this stuff out, but if you are a creative person spending any amount of money on your art, open a business account and get yourself another credit card exclusively for it. It is a little bit more work, but it will make your life so much easier come tax time to write stuff off. And if you have no idea what I’m talking about, please revisit my newsletter on tracking your spending and writing stuff off on your taxes. I even made this bare-bones template to help you start tracking stuff.

I am being a freak about this stuff for a few reasons:

Since I signed a lease on my studio space in December and put in all the work to be a dang business, it has forced me to take myself and my art more seriously. I have to be more precious with my time and actually be realistic about how many projects I can take on. I’m paying my hard earned dollars on a studio space!!!! I need to make it worth my damn while!!!

What if I built a sustainable practice lol. This year, I’m not trying to make money with my art. I’m simply trying to not lose money. Most of my shows and events are starting to break even, which is huge. Maybe in the future my friends and I will be able to charge $100 for VIP tickets to a backyard production of Roadhouse, but until then I just want to create events that are not a financial burden on myself or my friends. Because as much as my friends claim they are willing to work for pizza, I know $40 would be better.

Some Chicago stuff I’m into:

• West Town Chamber of Commerce is hosting an independent artist mixer tonight from 6-8pm. I joined earlier this year as a part of my “taking my art more seriously” journey. The membership is $100 a year and you get some sick perks, including use of their space to throw a weirdo art show!

• Star Power at Hideout on Wednesday.

• My Yoga class isn’t heated, but they do advertise it as having an “ambient temp.”

• Party Girl: A Night of A Thousand Parker Poseys at Color Club on Thursday.

• And while you’re at it, Jerwin’s last substack about love, friendship, and explosive diarrhea.

• Merry We: An Elite Comedy in July. Lmk what day you get tickets, let’s get a drink before.

And some non-Chicago-specific stuff:

• Paying $5 for Roach Sauce and helping fund Cockroach Nightmare, the genius new short film from Annaleigh Stone. I just donated $100 because I’m selfish and greedy and I know it’s gonna be amazing and I want my name in the credits when it pops off.

• Happy pub day to one of the only people I trust to talk about personal finance!!!!

• Waymo cars ablaze.

• Caleb Hearon HBO special!!!!!!!!!

• Should I get a tankini? VOTE

Next Issue: ISOLATION BREEDS RADICALISM. In March, I started organizing inclusive self defense classes because I wanted my trans friends to feel comfortable learning to fight. We’ve had a ton of people come through and I feel way more connected to my community because of it. It’s a decent amount of logistical work, but so is anything worth organizing. The next issue I’m going to break down step-by-step how I put these classes together in hopes that y’all can use it as a playbook to host your own community events. Let me know if you have specific questions! There are no dumb questions for hosting community events!!

If you want to do some research before the next issue, swing by our next class at Grace Church of Logan Square next Tuesday (June 17) at 7pm!

Thanks for reading and, as always, don’t tell me about any typos unless they are really bad.