I should have mentioned this with my post yesterday but honestly it needs its own post here, so I wanted to wait and write this up separately.

Those of you who have been following me have probably noticed that the last couple years have brought no shortage of troubles to me, and I’ve been having a really rough go of it.

For those who aren’t aware of what’s been happening I’ll put a brief synopsis at the end of this, but I really want to focus on the here and now, so before I get into that let’s start off with what I’m doing about it:

February and March 2026, Fundraiser

Effective February 15, I started running a fundraiser discount.
My current goal is to get in a total of at least $2500 by the end of March (Or middle of April, really) to offset some of the issues I’ve had, and have enough money set aside for a couple months of rent so I’m not struggling to get out of the red at the start of every month.

Since starting the fundraiser, I have been able to get around $1000 towards that goal set aside, most of which has already gone to this month’s rent. That leaves me with a further goal of around $1500 to bring in, though ideally I would REALLY like to get double that.

What this means for you:

During the entire duration of this fundraiser, I am offering a 25% discount off of the base cost of all commissions. This means that for the duration a $25 portrait sketch is only $18.75, a $100 cell shaded half body is only $75, and so on.
As with all of my discounts, this applies to the base cost of the art before add ons such as rush delivery, commercial use licenses, the cost of supplies for traditional art, printing and shipping fees for hard copy delivery if you want a print, etc.

How to qualify for the discount:

All commissions must have a 50% deposit paid BEFORE the end of the fundraiser to qualify for the discount. Really straightforward.
Anything you pay immediately goes into the fund towards my goal, which means that IDEALLY you can pay the full cost of the commission up front, but as with all commissions I am more than happy to accept payment plans and let you pay in installments. I just can’t count any unpaid balance towards my goal.

Just send me a message on any messenger app I’m on (FB Messenger, Discord, Instagram, Telegram) or send me an email at INFO@ASHSOMETHING.ART to get a quote.
You can also order directly via Ko-Fi, but I recommend going directly through me because I can’t just create a single discount code on Ko-Fi for this, so I’d have to give you a unique one before you put the order in there.

How will this money be used?

This is a little hard to answer, because it will be used however it needs to be used as situations warrant it over the next few months- but I can break down what my current plan is.
First off, the goal of $2500 isn’t arbitrary.
This accounts for 3 months of my rent ($750×3=2250) with $250 extra to add to savings during that time- I currently have about $700 in savings that I have been PAINSTAKINGLY setting aside over the last few months.
However, it may be the case that I use $1500 for rent, to cover two months, then split the remaining $750 to cover necessities I need- clothing that fits me for interviews, since my old dress clothes don’t fit anymore, and the rest to cover bills (My bills every month on top of rent are around $250 so this would give me a couple sets of clothes and two months of bills).

If I manage to meet my goal and get into the stretch goal, then the plan to use the additional money is almost entirely- put it into my savings.
During the time I was evicted in 2023, things were so chaotic that I missed a court date for a traffic ticket, which resulted in my driver’s license being suspended. As of October I’ve been attempting to save up money to pay that ticket and additional fees off (A total of $1860) so that I can work on getting my license reinstated and getting myself a car again- this is a long term goal but aside from rent and bills, almost ALL of my finances are going towards this goal currently.
My current plan is to have it all paid off before January so that I can renew my license before the License expiration date- so that I don’t have to go through the trouble of re-applying and redoing the driver’s test and everything.

But that goal comes second to everything else- and I can only really work on it if this initial goal succeeds and if I can keep the income flowing for the rest of the year.

What happens if/when I meet the goal early?

Then I have a stretch goal of $4000 to work towards. This fundraiser is aimed at pulling me out of the red and giving me the breathing room to stop worrying about getting NEW commissions, so that I can focus 100% of my energy on completing my backlog of commissions without the mounting stress and burnout I’ve been accumulating for the last two years.

I feel like if I can give myself that breathing room and complete these projects I can more readily start working on larger projects I’ve been having to put off like my tarot decks and the Something Strange zine- things that I have been far too stressed to work on or have any artistic vision and direction for, for far too long.

Why I’m not Crowdsourcing using a platform like GoFundMe:

Using a platform like GoFundMe or other such feels disingenuous to me and doesn’t fix the overarching problem, from my perspective. I don’t like the idea of putting a campaign up and begging people for money without giving something in return. I prefer to solve my business issues with my business, and give you the services I offer in return for your assistance. I have had a spotty history with crowdfunding, and my following isn’t nearly large enough to make a crowdfunding campaign work out on gofundme- and I can’t really crowdfund for my larger projects via something like Kickstarter because then I’m using the money that should be going to that project to support myself.

There are a lot of things that make crowdfunding a much messier option, but there’s nothing simpler to me than saying: “You help me, you get art and a discount on that art.“

So think of this as my way of trying to solve my problems while offering quid pro quo. I’m not just begging for money, I’m offering to give you whatever art you need at a discount so as to help me meet my own goals.

And now that I’ve gotten all of that out of the way:
What has been going on the last two years to make me need to do this?

This part may be long, but I’ll start off with an easy number as a baseline.
During the year of 2025, I brought in a grand total of $9000.
That was my total income for the year. My rent was $700 a month, which totals $8400 for the year.
If I hadn’t had the foresight to apply for food assistance/SNAP December the year prior, I would have been legitimately starving or unable to pay my rent for the year.

This number comes at the heels of me having spent 60 hours per week (and legitimately tracked these hours) attempting to do sales and marketing to try to get new commissions, almost nonstrop throughout the entire year.

In contrast, in 2023, I brought in $19000, and only had to spend around 10 hours a week marketting, and I was able to spent the rest of that time working on commissions (At least until I was evicted in July that year.)
And in further contrast in 2022, I brought in $25000 while still only doing around 10 hours a week on marketing and sales with the rest being working on the actual art for clients.

This has been a slow decline that has been devastating to me- and before anyone says “Well why don’t you just get a day job?”
I’ve been trying to. Since July of last year I have put in HUNDREDS of applications. I spent almost as much time applying for day jobs as I do looking for new contracts and clients, these days, and I haven’t gotten a single interview despite revising my resume, rebuilding my website and portfolio, and putting hours and hours of work in every day, to try and solve this issue.

On top of all of this I’ve been doing it all through a severe bout of depression and the full spread of my ADHD symptoms going full force- the harder it is to support myself with my art, the harder I have to fight against my mental health. I’ve been in therapy for over a year about it, and trying to find the right medication since January of last year- with a WIDE range of side effects hitting me that I’ve had to push through to keep the work up just to barely be treading water.

So at this point, it’s all sink or swim for me, but I have no other way to support myself at the moment than to keep relying on my art and keep pursuing this dream, and to hope that there are enough people out there who want to help support me with my art, or who need art and see value in the work I do enough to hire me.

And so that is where I am- coming out of my literal lowest-ever earning year, and trying to get back on top of everything. I’ve made a couple of plays at this same goal a couple times over the last couple years, and they’ve all failed, so this is kind of a hail mary pass, trying one last time- but putting ALL of my effort into it, to try and force it to succeed this time.

Anyway, in short:

Things have been going poorly for too long and I need to bring in enough money to finally start counteracting that, so that I can free up time and energy to work through my commission backlog and get out of the red with my finances, with the projects on my table, and with life-

And to do that I am running a fundraiser discount of 25% off the base cost of all commissions for the next couple months to try and force myself out of this slump that’s been going on for way too long.

Thank you all for taking the time to read this, and if you want to order a commission, hit me up on any of the messenger apps I use, or shoot me an email to get started with the process!