the gallery that asked me to change my colours and I did not know what to say
One time a gallery person looked at my Mithila paintings, natural colours, hand-ground, the way my mother and grandmother taught me, and said could I make them brighter? More modern? Like acrylic maybe. I was standing there holding a brush and I did not know what to say ji.
I thought about it for many days. In the end I did not change. But I have wondered since if I was foolish.
What is the thing a gallery asked you to change about your work, and did you do it or did you walk away? I am asking because I still think about this sometimes.
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I think about this a lot too. A gallery once told me my blues were too similar, that I should introduce more contrast, warmer tones, something to catch the eye faster. But the blue is the whole point for me, it's the colour of the deep Atlantic where I grew up, the colour of the water that has my father in it. To change that would be to make something that looks right to someone else but feels wrong to me.
You weren't foolish. You chose the hands that taught you over a stranger's opinion about what sells. That's not nothing.
Your blue is your father deep in the water ji. That I understand. Nobody can tell you to change that, it would be like painting over your own memory. In Mithila we have a saying, the colour that comes from your hand knows something the colour from a tube never will. Your blue knows the Atlantic. That is not nothing at all. Thank you for sharing this with me.