Hank with the awesome sourdough bread was new to the farmer’s market this summer.
I was excited to see someone had fresh-baked bread for sale since there aren’t any bakeries for miles. I’m a bonafide bread snob. Won’t touch anything with pull dates wrapped in a plastic bag that sits on grocery store shelves.
I’ve been a loyal customer of Hank’s every week all summer. Yesterday when my turn came to buy my bread for the week, Hank told me it was his last day for the year.
“Oh wow,” I said, a little surprised since my friend Alice who runs a produce stand in another part of the market had just told me the market had two more weeks to go in the season.
“Ya,” Hank said. “I have a contractor’s job I need to complete. And to be honest, I’m tired.”
Our eyes met when he said that and I could see it, how tired he really was.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he quickly added, sweeping his arms through the air over the numerous bins of boules, batards, focaccias, and English muffins surrounding him in his booth. “I love making bread. I’m just not much of a fan of the sales part, dealing with the public for hours at a time.”
I nodded, hoping he’d sense I was acknowledging his situation. Because here’s the truth: creatives — no matter what you make, bread, pottery, music, books, mixed media collages — thrive while making what we make. The rest is the hard part.
By the rest I mean the business of being creative. Marketing our work. Finding audiences who want to pay us for what we make. Staying visible in a digital world that demands constant presence. That side of the equation rarely gets taught. We’re told to learn the craft, not how to turn the craft into a livelihood.
It’s the yang to our yin. And it’s the part many creatives opt out of doing, handing the business side to people who thrive on meetings, negotiations, and cutting deals. Sometimes that works. Sometimes it backfires spectacularly. Billy Joel is one famous example of getting burned, but plenty of smaller, quieter stories never make the headlines.
Even when the partnerships are honest, the fear of being taken advantage of is real. That fear alone keeps countless creatives from sharing their work in a bigger way — a way that could pay the bills, cover a mortgage, and maybe even leave a little extra for a splurge or two.
And today, the people taking advantage aren’t always shady managers. More often it’s the platforms themselves. They dangle promises of built-in audiences and “easy” exposure, then skim so much off the top that what’s left might buy you a Starbucks latte, maybe two if you’re lucky.
The cold, hard reality is this: to make it in any creative business — publishing, music, sports, entertainment — you have to work hard to get through the velvet ropes, and even harder to stay in the room.
Hank’s exhaustion stems partly from baking dozens of loaves in the days before market, then packing bins, hauling them across town, setting up a booth, and standing on his feet for five-plus hours. But I suspect the deeper fatigue comes from something else: the slow drip of realizing that the joy of making bread is only a fraction of what it takes to run the business of being a baker.
And that’s the Creator’s Dilemma. The making feeds the soul. The business drains it. The question becomes: how do we keep creating anyway?
As he wrapped up my sourdough, Hank slipped a bonus loaf into the bag. “For you,” he said. “Thanks for being such a loyal customer this summer.”
That small gesture meant a lot. A gift from a tired creator to someone who showed up week after week.
As I walked away with my last loaves of Hank’s sourdough for the season, I couldn’t help but wonder: how many beautiful things never make it to the table because the weight of “the rest” is simply too much?