Living By Making

From preparing breakfast for Airbnb guests at my farmhouse in Denmark to thinking about class, grants, day jobs, art school debt, and what it means to make art while carrying a working-class history in the body, this is an episode about survival, shame, labour, and the strange intimacy of trying to build a life through creative work. Instagram: @mianelle_studio Web: www.mianelle.dk Email: studio@mianelle.com

What happens when your integrity and your survival pull in different directions? In this episode, I reflect on the tension between staying true to your artistic voice and trying to make a living within a system that often asks for something else. From my farmhouse in Denmark, I move between the soil, the studio, and the gallery world — through experiences with commercial galleries, years of holding on to my own way of working, and the quiet question that keeps returning: Can you build a life as an artist without compromising what matters most? This is an episode about money, shame, freedom, and the cost of staying true. www.mianelle.dk

What does it mean to continue making art when it does not pay the rent? In this episode, I reflect on the quiet panic that can live alongside a creative life — the tension between devotion to the work and the very practical question of survival. From my farmhouse studio in Denmark, I speak about money, doubt, class, and the strange persistence that keeps many artists working even when the numbers do not add up. This is an episode about staying with the work when the world asks for something more practical.

In this episode of Living by Making, I reflect on the years when alcohol quietly became a way of coping with anxiety, pressure, and doubt. Through memories of early sobriety, AA meetings, and a strange encounter with a Catholic priest who believed a demon lived inside me, I explore what it meant to face addiction while trying to build a life as an artist. It is a story about survival, art, and the moment when choosing to live becomes possible again.

I had 3.5 pounds. No address. And I was told to go back where I came from. This episode moves from chronic pain and no income in the countryside to my return from Glasgow in 2013, being labelled “IMMIGRANT” in my own country, nearly losing my body to illness, and the collapse of my first solo show. It’s about poverty inside the art world. About welfare systems that don’t catch you. About drinking too much. About mothers, rollercoasters, and radishes. And about how strength is arranged — weakest first. If this episode speaks to you, you’re welcome to join my monthly letter for artists and makers. Each month I share reflections on painting, artistic courage, creative structure and the inner life of making. You’ll also receive early access to new works and invitations to mentorship and masterclasses. Join here: STAY CONNECTED

What happens after your first solo show fails? In this episode, I share the two years I spent in Glasgow — navigating money, mental health, ambition, and survival — and what they taught me about living by making without a safety net. If this episode speaks to you, you’re welcome to join my monthly letter for artists and makers. Each month I share reflections on painting, artistic courage, creative structure and the inner life of making. You’ll also receive early access to new works and invitations to mentorship and masterclasses. Join here: STAY CONNECTED

My first solo show in London in 2010 — and I didn’t have the money for it. If this episode speaks to you, you’re welcome to join my monthly letter for artists and makers. Each month I share reflections on painting, artistic courage, creative structure and the inner life of making. You’ll also receive early access to new works and invitations to mentorship and masterclasses. Join here: STAY CONNECTED

Meet me at my Degree Show in Fine Art (2010). This episode begins there — at the moment where money, hope, ambition, and fear quietly start to hum in the background of an artist’s life. If this episode speaks to you, you’re welcome to join my monthly letter for artists and makers. Each month I share reflections on painting, artistic courage, creative structure and the inner life of making. You’ll also receive early access to new works and invitations to mentorship and masterclasses. Join here: STAY CONNECTED