With the start of the new year, I start to shuffle through all my receipts and attempt to make sense of my organizational system, which looks a lot like my cats do my filing for me. They do love paperwork. Sitting on it.
Many of us clay artists gravitate towards the material for its tangible goodness, the tactile reward of dedication and skill. Numbers don’t always possess that satisfaction. At least not for me; they are like bars of soap floating in the bathtub of my head, I cannot grasp them.
When it comes to math, I would rather wedge up all my reclaim. When it comes to taxes, I get those done after scooping the litterboxes, reorganizing my sock drawer by color and alphabetizing the contents of my pantry.
Creative types need a little help with the business end of art, assisting with this daunting task is Melinda McCutchan presenting “Artists and Accounting” on Thursday from 10:45-11:15. She will offer guidance for our day-to-day operations as well as the end of the year tax extravaganza.
Melinda has over 35 years of accounting experience and built many systems for others. Check out some of her posts here on the NCECA Blog, with more planned on a variety of accounting topics leading up to her presentation. In addition, she is also a clay artist, so you know she can speak to the ceramicist’s struggle with calculations outside of the glaze variety.
This discussion will focus on the business end of getting ready for taxes, not dispensing tax advice. She will cover basic bookkeeping principles, checking accounts and maintaining record systems. Helping you to lay a foundation during the year so at tax time, it should be less…umm taxing?
The discipline we invest in our art should be applied to the business end of making as well, Melinda will illustrate why keeping good records can save time and money. Her presentation will appeal to the artistic nature and provide an incentive to put a priority on bookkeeping practices. It will have interactive and educational components to fight the mind-numbing stupor of numbers by inviting questions and having handouts. You will have to supply your own coffee.
As my College English professor was fond of saying, “It would behoove you to attend.” After Melinda’s presentation, you’ll leave with a better idea of bookkeeping and accounting and almost a month still to get your taxes done.
