As an artist, I have always patched together a bunch of service jobs and sales and so far have managed to keep body and soul within hollerin' distance. It gets harder all the time, mostly because of all the red tape involved.
For example, once upon a time you could fix up a batch of home-made jelly and sell it for $3 a jar and as long as you weren't doing it more than once or twice a year, nobody cared. :chef:
Then they decided health departments had to inspect kitchens, and at that point you could get a certificate in most counties showing that your kitchen was ok even if it was still just your home. :drillsergeant:
Then they decided that only commercial kitchens unattached to houses could get that kind of thing, so people began to pool rents for time in an inspected kitchen.
Then they decided the people had to be inspected and so you had to show you took a course to become a certified "food handler". :reading:
Enough people did that so that then they decided you have to take that course every year! :cussing:
I have thought about going to a foreign country and sneaking back into the USA without papers, pretending I don't speak English, so that I wouldn't be required to get all the certificates that regular Americans are required to have. :jumping2:
But I don't think I would be able to keep up the act very long and my blue eyes would make people suspicious. :cool:
So there is still art s and crafts, but then they started to zero in on that, too. In many communities the liberals report artists for "manufacturing" in "residential areas" if the artists don't pay into the right political purses, and then they have recently started going after people who make home-made toys to require them to have safety certificates. :faint:
Gee.... I started out saying how I was going to do some kind of personal free market thing in 2010 and now all of a sudden I forgot what I was gonna say.....:idea:
Well, I do have this little shop called "The Teapot Co-op" and a few friends and I have some things in the Ruby Lane marketplace:
http://theteapotcoop.rubylane.com :cheers: :wave: :alcohol:
PM me with questions.