What Do You Make Your Business? (A Life-Affirming Art Project)

3 min readMar 20, 2020

Are you stuck at home during a COVID-19 QUARANTINE?

Seize the opportunity to exercise your creativity in new ways!

MAKE ART to combat boredom and restlessness!

Specifically, do THIS art project.

Exquisitely suited to this unusual worldwide moment of pause, this project takes just the right amount of time — as long as you want it to — and your finished work will appear in a growing collection created by artists from all over the world.

What Is It?

A #MakeItYourBusiness card is a business card that represents the business of living a full and meaningful life.

These business cards have just 3 elements:

1. Any Image

Personally, I’m generally drawn towards vintage pictures. There’s something tender about them. Old things are naturally endearing. They inspire us by merely surviving.

So, most of the images for my cards come from 1970s National Geographic magazines.

But you can use any image you like, found or created, including photographs you’ve taken.

Your creation can be handmade (analog) or digital.

Each card is unique, and always attracts the person who needs it most.

2. Inspirational Words

You want to find (or write) words that have a tone of authority, like a direction. Remember, whatever words you choose, the idea is that you’re saying, “This matters. Make It Your Business to do this.”

Looking through a book or magazine specifically in search of words to cut out of context is also a fun and unique way to engage your brain with written language!

I like to save the cool & beautiful phrases I discover in this binder.

3. Standard Business Card Size

Arrange your image and words within 3.5 x 2 inches. (Horizontal or vertical.)

Now, More Than Ever.

Mass quarantines are being imposed worldwide, giving us all plenty of time to exercise our creativity, and we should. But, simple as it may be, this project is about more than merely exercising creativity.

The effects of these mass quarantines are guaranteed to change the way we think, the way we live. We owe it to ourselves to suck from this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity every drop of it’s sweet, life-affirming juice.

Now, more than ever, we ask ourselves in imposed solitude: “What really matters?”

Putting your answer on a “business card” is exactly the point of #MakeItYourBusiness. It has weight and substance. It is a cross-cultural symbol of self-representation. It says:

This is who I am.
This is what I do.
This is what matters to me.

What does matter to you?

What do you believe we need to address with as much attention and energy as we give to the businesses we rely on for income and status?

You have an answer.

Tell us.
Show us.
Join us.
#MakeItYourBusiness