How does the seasonality of henna work affect professional henna artists?
first published: 2011. Updated 2015, 2021, 2025, 2026.
The Henna Season – all professional henna artists experience it and know it well. For me personally, I’ve come to realize that my year and my feelings about how my year flows around it – how the ebb and flow of the availability of work affects me – are incredibly predictable at this point.
My henna season gets its official kickoff in March, with the Henna Gathering conference.
All throughout March: Things are coming together! Final plans being made. A year’s worth of planning is finally feeling like it’ll come to fruition!
Week of the conference: Excitement! People are coming from everywhere to have fun and henna!!! YAY!! OMG this is stressful but YAY!
Day after the conference: This conference running thing is a lot of work, and I don’t even get to enjoy everyone’s company while they’re here!! Do I still want to run a conference?
One week after the conference: Yes, yes I do.
Apr-mid May: Yay I am so excited about the henna season starting! Time to put together design books! Let’s get that booth setup ready to go!
Late May through June: Okay, this is TOO MANY CALLS for gigs. I can’t answer the phone this much and write this many emails and have a life too. I need a personal assistant to do this stuff STAT. Oh wait, no I don’t, I just need to get used to using my time more efficiently, now that I need to.
June through September: Frantic crazy 80 hour work weeks. I can deal, though. Sorry folks, emails and phone calls are only guaranteed to get answered once a day – unless I am already working out of the house 8+ hours that day, in which case they’ll get answered tomorrow. And I *am* taking at least one day off a week (maybe two!) off completely from work so I can retain some sanity. I still love my clients, really I do, and I will get back to you soon about doing your henna.
Yes friends, I still love you too, and I’m sorry I don’t have time to hang out (except maybe like midweek sometimes?) and definitely am not up for doing extra fun henna stuff right now. Henna is fun and henna is work, but for this third of the year during peak henna season it is mostly WORK.
Sept through Oct: Wow, I can’t believe there are still henna jobs this late in the season! This is the PERFECT amount of work! Just enough to fill my time, not so much that I am answering a billion phone calls and emails for things I can’t do.
Nov-Dec: There’s finally time to do all the stuff I have been procrastinating about! Ebooks get published, galleries get updated, model and photo sessions get booked, art projects for my soul rather than to earn a living get done…
Jan: I’m bored!! And kind of depressed. Wait, it’s dumb to be depressed, as my life is super awesome. In a good year: find something fun to do as a distraction. In a bad year: stay in this funk most of the month.
Jan-Feb: Ugh, there are no jobs. I’m not depressed anymore, but I’m still BORED! Quite possibly I am feeling the pinch of not having saved enough over the course of the year, if I have been stupid. Maybe I should open a STORE! YEAH! a store or at least a studio would be a great idea! Let’s obsessively look at properties and try to make the math work! And brainstorm the newest twist I have come up with to make it have a chance of being profitable! Realize that I only need a store to keep me occupied Jan+Feb. Abandon idea until next year, when I am fully convinced that it is the answer to my problems yet again.
………..and repeat.
August 2015 Reflections:
In 2013, I caved to the Jan-Feb boredom feeling, because I had saved up enough to do so, and because it was such a naggingly constant “what if” in my mind. I rented a studio space and tried to do private appointments and classes. I am pleased to report that I came to my senses after my 1 year lease was up, realized that what I said in this post is totally true, (that I only really “need” something like this in the slow months) and closed up the studio 🙂
I now fill the downtime in Jan + Feb with travel and visiting family and friends as much as possible. It’s much better for my soul. And I plan big projects (like gallery shows!) for November, when I know I’ll have the energy and motivation and excitement needed to do them well.
June 2021 Reflections:
I have finally come up with a solution for the “OMG TOO MUCH TO DO! NEED PERSONAL ASSISTANT STAT!” feels of June. It is HoneyBook. HoneyBook is amazing. The only problem with HoneyBook is now I am booking an even HIGHER percentage of the inquiries that come my way, since it is good about nagging me to follow up with people. This is, I suppose, a good problem to have. If you use this link you will get a discount if you choose to give it a try. My #1 tip for it is to pay them the $9 or whatever for the first month so that you can email them all of your contracts/invoices/etc and make THEM do all the setup for you. It would take you quite some time to do this on your own from scratch….but for $9, it will take you no longer than it takes to locate (or draw up) your standard contract and invoice.
And also:
The Henna Gathering ended 3-4 years ago. So now the excited-about-henna-again energy is reinvigorated at Spring Fling in late February.
Aug 2025 reflections:
The thing I first wrote in my henna blog in 2011 is still super true Went looking to see if I had notes on sucking as a friend and family member, cuz I’ve been feeling like a real failure at both lately. Not exactly, but kinda. I guess the main difference is I am way better about actually trying to make time to spend with family and friends more consistently in recent years. But, as it turns out, I am still falling pretty short at being as good at it as I want to be.
New goal: save to a special “paid vacation days” fund for myself, which has enough to take seven days off at solid, not just baseline bare minimum, fest / wedding day pay. That’s three weekends, one of em even potentially a holiday one. That would have let me go on my friend camping trip guilt free when an “amazing” opportunity came up (which then fell through the cracks later, as a cruel joke / super spot on message from the Universe – but that story is for another day). And while it wouldn’t have changed the fact that my coverage during my brother’s visit from CO fell through at the last minute and I had to leave him and his wife 2 days earlier than we had planned, it potentially could allow for different choices if it came up during an event I was more willing to let go of if the organizers held skipping it against me.
It’s a lofty goal, but I’m gonna try my best to be frugal and industrious as heck to try to meet it by Indigenous Peoples Day weekend. And make a solid effort at some back burnered project or another in the off season if it hasn’t happened by then. Cuz family and friends are what I truly value most. And having people tell me they understand that $ / job / biz have to come first as I am disappointing them (and/or myself) still breaks my heart. And then when my heart is broken, I can lash / flake out in unpredictable ways, which is no bueno.
August 2026 Reflections:
So, I didn’t quite make the goal of saving enough for a full paid week off at peak season earnings, mostly due to a confluence of a lot of life stuff happening at exactly the same time as people have been hurting extra hard financially due to tariffs, increasing prices for food and housing, stagnant wages, etc. Festival earnings have been lower last year and this year than anticipated – especially this year, now that the misery of this new baseline has really set in for a lot of people.
But I’m still making sure to spend plenty of time with family and friends throughout the year, and do intentionally set aside days off to spend with them when it makes the most sense to do so – namely midweek during the henna season, and then a lot more during the off season. I spent a lot of the last off season working towards my pyrography project, and got five more instruments done. this upcoming 2026-2027 off season should hopefully be when I more actively get a chance to promote that.
I do like that I take some time to come back to this entry and reflect on this every so often – it helps keep things in perspective. Especially right about now, in August, this weird little lull between July and September, which are both INSANE. August is much less so. It’s weird. It’s fine, but it’s weird. Maybe some day I’ll travel to where there are major fairs happening in early August… there must be some places. But not here. The first half of August here in MA/RI is deaddeaddead. Which is fine. It’s giving me time to update my website – a much-needed effort 🙂
