Tackling crunch and burnout

Creative pressures Tanya Combrinck talks to three artists who have experienced burnout about what can be done to address stressful working practices

- Tanya Combrinck

Working as a professional artist can involve tough deadlines, and if not properly managed this lifestyle can cause stress and even burnout. Unfortunately, many large projects involve a period at the end of the timeline known as "crunch', in which staff are expected to work extremely long hours, usually without extra pay, in order to hit the final deadline.

In some industries, crunch can extend so far back into the project timeline that some staff can be said to be working in crunch conditions on a regular basis. For freelancers, these stresses can be compounded by the lack of job security.

Lazare Gvimradze is a freelance digital artist based in Georgia who creates promotional artwork for films and games. He has experienced burnout twice, and finds that the instability of working as a freelancer can be stressful for those who are new to it.

"Oftentimes we find ourselves living from project to project, which creates a sense of quiet dread, and sometimes it pushes us to make rash decisions and take on more work than we can handle," he says. "Knowing that work still might 'run out' in a few months can create a sense of anxiety and eventually lead to burnout."

A TRANSITION PERIOD

Lazare's strategy for fighting back the forces that cause burnout emerged from two principles: don't underestimate your need as a creative person to have downtime to recharge, and the communication skills needed to negotiate with clients are something you can learn. "I learned far too late that multiple large, back-toback projects could spell doom if || didn't take time to create for myself before transitioning from one to the other," he says. "Taking a few days to decompress and make fanart, or just stepping back entirely and consuming content instead of making it can be all that's needed. Switching output to input, in short."