I had this portrait I did last summer, a woman with her hair caught in wind, all warm ochres and pale blue. I was so proud of it at first, then after a few months I started seeing everything wrong with it. The jaw was off. The pastel dust had settled into the paper grain in a way I didn't like. I kept it in my studio, didn't even photograph it properly for Instagram. I mentioned it in passing to someone at a small market stall I was sharing last month, just complained actually, that I had this piece taking up space and nobody wanted it and maybe it was just a failed experiment. She asked to see it. I pulled it out reluctantly. She bought it on the spot. Not because I pitched it well. Because I stopped trying to make it sound like something it wasn't. I've been thinking about that a lot. How much energy I spend polishing the story around my work, making it sound impressive, desirable, worth someone's time. And the one time I just said "this thing exists and I'm not sure it's even good" it worked better than any of my careful descriptions ever did. Maybe the selling is in the honesty, not the framing. I don't know. I'm still figuring it out.
