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The only wall in my house with decent natural light is the hallway between the kitchen and the bedrooms. So that's where my easel lives. I get maybe 45 minutes of good light in the late afternoon before it shifts and everything I'm mixing starts to look wrong. I've gotten weirdly good at working fast in that window. Lay down the big shapes first, save the fine detail for the evening under the overhead light even if the colors are off, because I know from experience they'll read fine by morning. The kids step over the drop cloth like it's always been there. My husband hung a towel over the window on the bathroom door once and I nearly cried with gratitude. I tell myself someday I'll have a real studio but honestly I'd probably just end up painting in a different hallway.

the dining table is covered in a layer of charcoal dust and there's a dried puddle of matte medium on the corner i keep meaning to scrape off. the only natural light is from a window that faces my neighbor's brick wall. i used to be embarrassed about it. like i needed a real studio to be a real artist. then i spent a year paying $400/month for a windowless basement room i shared with three other people and realized i just wanted to be home. the tradeoff is i have to eat dinner on the couch every night and my nice plates are in a box somewhere but honestly? i make more work now than when i had the "proper" space. something about not having to pack everything up and commute to it.

Okay so I've been trying to figure out this whole "get your art in front of people who actually buy it" thing instead of just posting into the void and hoping. I kept reading that you're supposed to DM interior designers and stylists but nobody ever says what you're actually supposed to SAY to them?? Like "hi I'm an artist" feels so flat. So last week I just went for it. I picked 12 designers who post the kind of spaces I could actually see my work in, warm, natural light, not super minimal. And I literally just said something like "hey! I'm a watercolor painter and I've been obsessed with how you use color in [specific project they posted]. Just wanted to share a few pieces I think would sit nicely in that kind of space, no pressure at all but thought I'd throw it out there" and attached 3 photos. 3 replied. One asked to set up a call. One said "send me your portfolio" and then went quiet lol. One just said "beautiful work, I'll keep you in mind" which could mean nothing but also could mean something?? I don't know. The thing is I felt so awkward doing it. Like I'm bothering them. But also nobody saw me do it so who cares right. I'm gonna do another batch this week and actually follow up with the ones who went quiet because my friend who's a freelancer said that's the part everybody skips. Anyway just wondering if anyone else has tried this and whether it actually turned into sales or just polite replies that go nowhere. I'll report back if that call turns into anything 🙃

when i first moved into this space two years ago i was so annoyed about the windows. it's a basement unit and the only natural light comes from these little hopper windows at street level that just show a brick wall about three feet away. i thought i'd hate it forever. but there's something about a wall that close. you watch the light change on the brick across the day, how it goes from grey to gold to almost purple. in winter the frost traces the mortar lines. i see maybe six inches of sky if i press my face against the glass. it's enough. also no one can see in so i don't have to tidy up for an audience. there's a pile of stuff next to my table that's been there since august. i know where everything is.

I have been trying for months to make nice reels about Mithila painting. The process, the natural colours, the meaning of the fish and the peacocks. Good lighting, proper background, all arranged. My son helps me with the editing. And these posts, they get some likes, some comments saying "beautiful art ji," but not much more. Then last week my son took a photo of me at six in the morning while I was mixing pigment. I had not even bathed. Old kurta, hands stained with lampblack. The photo is not good, blurry, bad angle. I told him delete it. He said no, let me post. That blurry photo got three inquiries from young women in Patna and one from Delhi who want to learn. They said it looked "real." One said she could see I was actually doing the work, not performing. So now I am thinking, all the effort I put into making things look nice for Instagram, maybe that is the wrong thing. Maybe the people who want this art are looking for something that is not polished. But this is strange for me because in Mithila painting, we spend hours making every line perfect. The whole point is precision. But online, they want the opposite. I am not sure what to do with this information. Keep posting the blurry morning photos or go back to the proper videos? Both feel wrong in different ways.

A couple came to the studio today, nice people, serious look about them. She spent a long time in front of the still life with the copper pot, the one where the light comes through the wine glass. Said it made her feel something. Then the husband asked if I could do a version with "less of that." Less of the feeling, is what he meant. He wanted the same painting but flatter, calmer, more neutral, for above the sofa in the living room. I said no. Politely, I think. Offered to show them other work that was quieter by nature. But he kept pushing, like it was a question of my flexibility rather than the point of the thing. The point being that I spent three weeks getting that light right, glazing the copper until it rang. You don't ask a singer to do the song without the voice. I know commissions are commissions and I do them, happily, within reason. But there's a version of this job where you become a decorator with a paintbrush, and every time a request like this comes in I feel the floor tilt toward it. Where is the line, exactly? When do you say no and mean it, and when are you just being proud and difficult? I told them to think it over. I don't think they'll be back. That's probably fine.

Myself Ramesh, I am finding the colours are shifting so beautifully now. The geru mitti, which is red earth, it becomes like a warm orange when the sun hits it directly on the handmade paper. And the deep green from the neem leaves, it gets a touch of blue. It is a different light in the studio these days, a softer light. The peacocks are looking especially vibrant this afternoon. It makes me feel grateful for this process, ji.