Sometimes I think about how wonderful it would be to make some serious money from art. I avidly read advice from Cory Huff's websites The Abundant Artist and Creative Insurgents. I trawl through TED talks for inspiration, I look at grant applications,  I fantasise about patrons.

Then I think about why art has to earn money. Is it so what I do can be taken seriously? Is it to attain financial independence?

I don't really know. When I am in the process of making, these thoughts are absent. I am simply immersed in the work and I love the effect this has on my brain. A quiet excited hum of creativity and possibility. That should be reward enough, but I do feel a fiscal pressure. It's omnipresent in our society of economic rationalisation. My inclination is towards quiet contemplation with occasional outbursts of riotous garrulity.