(p.171) Although we do not seek to romanticize precarity, our research illustrates that artistic workers may have different experiences of precarity than other kinds of workers affected by the shift to casualized employment, such as retail service workers or contract academics. However, we note that for craft vendors, a strong sense of identity as proud, independent artisans and an attachment to the autonomy inherent in their work, as well as conditions of this work itself, may actually hinder their abilities and desires to work collectively or to advocate for changes that might ameliorate more negative aspects of their precarious work conditions,...

(p.182) For many, the major draws of artistic labor and self-employment are autonomy, freedom, and flexibility. Vending at the craft market offered a relatively low-cost and lowcommitment opportunity for artisans to sell their own products and reach a large customer base without having to invest in retail space or commit to set days and hours of work. However, as scholarly research on flexible, creative, non-standard self-employment shows, these qualities almost invariably come at the expense of security, income, benefits, unionization, and stability. Stress, long hours, and self-sacrifice may become an accepted standard in casualized creative labor, as the individual “autonomous” worker...