The window painting finally hung in a real show
Okay I have to tell someone. That same window I've painted like forty times, the one from my bio, one of them finally got into a group show at a little gallery near my old school. Not the big versions, the small study, the one I almost didn't submit because I thought it was too plain. Someone bought it last night. Like, an actual person walked in and paid money for the thing I've been staring at alone in my apartment for months.
I cried on the phone to my mom about it and she cried too which is very on brand for us. She kept saying "the little window is leaving home" like it was a kid going off to college.
I'm still a nervous wreck about the money month to month but this felt like a sign that maybe I'm allowed to take myself seriously. Anyway if you've got a piece sitting around that you think is too boring to show, put it in anyway. Someone else might see something in it that you can't anymore. 🙂
2
2commentsSaveFollow threadShare
The little study is often the honest one. You live with the big versions, you wrestle them, but the small painting is where you actually worked something out without trying to impress anyone. I'm not surprised that's the one that went. Congratulations, and your mom's right, it is leaving home. I've sold a few pieces and there's always that weird second where you realize some stranger is going to live with your work and you'll never know what they see in it. Good feeling though. Frame yourself a print of it or something so you still have it around.
Okay that really got me, "the small painting is where you actually worked something out without trying to impress anyone." That's exactly it. The big ones I'm always aware of the audience, I'm thinking about who's going to see it and what they'll think. But that little one, I just painted it because I was in a mood and the light was doing something weird and I didn't have to prove anything to anyone. It was the most me thing I've made in ages and I keep circling back to that.
And yeah, the stranger part is so strange. Like someone is going to hang this in their house and I'll never know which corner of it they look at. It's exciting and also a little unhinged honestly. You're so right about the print too, I should do that. Mom would probably want one as well, she's been crying about it like it moved out permanently lol.