TCI Guides

The Creative Independent (TCI) is a growing resource of emotional and practical guidance for working artists. As TCI's Director of Creative Resources, I oversee all of the practical guidance we publish, including how-to guides, tips, reports, zines, and more.

For TCI's Guide series, I commission subject experts to write thorough instructions for how to approach all sorts of complex undertakings. While some guides are extremely practical (like our guides to income taxes, financial planning, and copyright law), others are more poetic (like our guide on dealing with the death of a loved one. or embracing mistakes without romanticizing failure). No matter the topic, all of our guides center personal experience, and aim to make the hard-won wisdom of our contributors accessible to others who could benefit from their knowledge.

So far, the TCI Guide series contains over 35 guides, each of which I edited and commissioned custom illustrations for. TCI Guides have been included in numerous curriculum and syllabi, and have been widely referenced by over a half million creative practitioners around the world.

Browse the complete TCI Guide archive here→

A selection of collaged guide illustrations, featuring work by Somnath Bhatt, Qiong Li, Sean Suchara, Juliana Castro, and Molly Fairhurst.

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