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got a cold email from a PR agency yesterday. they found my work through a show I did last spring and wanted to "help me tell my story." i was almost flattered until i read the whole thing. they specifically called out the piece i made from my brother's old work shirts and said i should "lean into the grief aesthetic" because it's "very on trend right now." also suggested i do a tiktok series about "what losing someone taught me about creativity." i stared at my screen for like five minutes. then i deleted it. i know they're just doing their job and this is how marketing works now but something about having your actual life turned into a content strategy made my skin crawl. i'm not a brand. i'm not a grief influencer. i'm just someone who makes things because i don't know what else to do with the weight. anyone else getting these? the ones that make you feel like a product instead of a person?

I said yes because I felt for him. Grief makes people weird and I get it. But he sent me ONE photo of this dog, taken from like 20 feet away, half in shadow, and the dog was black so it's basically just a shape with ears. I spent 12 hours on this painting working from that and reference photos of similar breeds and he picks it up today and goes "I dunno, his nose was warmer than that." His nose. Was warmer. Than that. I wanted to say bro you sent me a photo where I can't even tell if the dog has eyes. I wanted to say the nose is gray because the dog was black and standing in shade and that's literally what color it was in the ONLY IMAGE YOU GAVE ME. I wanted to say I painted this thing with more care than I've painted anything in months because I knew it mattered to you. But I just said "I can glaze some warmth in" and he left looking disappointed and now I'm sitting here furious at myself for taking the commission and furious at him for not understanding what he was asking for and furious at the photo and furious at the whole thing. Why do we do this. Why do we take jobs we know are going to make us feel like this. Because we need money? Because we want to be helpful? Because we're so desperate to prove we can do it that we ignore every red flag? Anyway. He's coming back Saturday. I'm gonna put some warm brown in the nose area and try not to scream.

someone bought the piece I made from my brother's old work shirts. the one I almost didn't put in the show because it felt too personal, like hanging my grief on a wall for strangers to walk past. the buyer didn't know any of that. she just said it reminded her of her dad's shed. all the things he kept that didn't make sense to anyone else. I wasn't ready for how that would feel. like the piece got adopted into someone else's story. like it's not just mine anymore. still crying about it honestly. good crying.