The life of an artist involves wearing many hats. Like Kentucky Derby amount of hats. Working on your craft involves time & effort to create, study, brainstorm, rehearse and experiment. Then there’s the life stuff: relationships, self-care, squeezing in enough sleep at night and 3 square meals a day. Then, there’s work. Maintaining some outside source of income to stabilize your finances and make all of your creative work tenable is critical for most artists unless they are fortunate enough to subsidize the aforementioned 3 square meals a day and self-care with one sole artistic endeavor alone.

There’s the omnipresent side hustles for artists: waiting tables, part-time administrative work. These options are available and valuable but also come with a few downsides, least of which is that they have little to nothing to do with your actual artistic passions, backgrounds and skill sets.

So what’s a brilliant, financially strapped artist to do?

CuratedCare.com, founded by New York City natives and arts & education pros Erin McConaghy & Marlene Veloso, was created over 5 years ago as a way for artists & teachers to market their unique skill sets to families, charge accordingly and make great money doing what they love. The idea was that everyone within this online marketplace: families, providers and kids, benefited because the platform was built upon the ideal that everyone’s time matters.

Behold a marketplace where artists and teachers (appropriately referred to as “Kid Experts”) get to create their own profiles, market their own souped-up babysitting styles & private lesson offerings, set their own rates and create their own schedules. This means a few valuable things: your skill sets are valued, not commoditized and families are excited to have you spend time with their kiddos precisely because of what you do creatively. Because the platform provides families with an on-going host of awesome providers, your provided flexibility to work with families as befits your schedule and are relieved of the pressure of schedule constraints when you need to audition, rehearse, book a show, etc.

Bookings and payment go through the platform to ensure safety, security & on-going support so you aren’t left to hang solo in the potentially confusing and lonely world of independent contractor work. You’ll also have an accurate account of all of your income when you (dun-dun-dunnnnn) go through the rigamaroo of tax season.

Logistics aside, maybe the most important aspect to all of this is the experience of what you are offering and receiving. Kids are magic. They can be exhausting, they can be challenging, but they can also be very, very awesome. Working with kids is an immersive experience. You are actively engaging and making a difference in a tiny life. Imagine where we would all be if our babysitters growing up were artists & teachers versus the token 12 year old in the neighborhood that everyone’s family had babysit (bless her, but still).

All things Covid are ebbing & flowing and while we are cautiously watching from the wings, theaters are reopening, auditions are booking and a return to artistic work is on the horizon. If you’re gearing up for a return to your creative community, consider checking out the creative community within Curated Care (tap into the NYC or LA community). The platform aims to provide an opportunity for creative engagement for kiddos, an opportunity for better child care for families, and opportunity for artists & teachers to get paid to do what they love.

So far, so good.

Check out more about becoming a Kid Expert here!