Although sometimes I believe luck exists 70% of the time, there's always this tiny glimmer of a feeling inside me believing that big chunk of luck actually sprouts from hardwork and consistency.
Not even a year ago, I can still vividly remember how I decide to create my own artist website spontaneously one night I got bored and needed a creative outlet inside my bedroom.
It was September 2022.
I didn't have any plan, no idea how to start, zilch tip on how to even create an artist's website that looks marketable enough and even appears convincing enough to be aligned and compared to meticulously donned by learned artists. I had this motivation that spontaneity can bring up something organic, unpretentious, realistic.
Of course it didn't go that direction. But eventually it did. After so many revisions, I took on a blank slate and started putting a grid type gallery of all my art collections, categorized and put up the best way I thought. Little did I know that was seen by many as "good enough", "clean" and "easy".
Flash forward to this night, on my way back to Basel from Neuchatel, I still couldn't believe in eight days I will be opening my first ever exhibit. Technically this is a duo exhibition together with a well-established Basel artist.
As an emerging one, self-doubt gets more validated everyday nearer to the exhibit day. No throwing up, no dizziness, but honest to goodness pure self doubting and imagining no one at all would visit the exhibit.
I guess that is the life of an artist. It's a normalized reality filled with self-doubt but as well as organic creativity, but nevertheless,WE DO IT.
I know at least 6 People will show up. My partner, my curator, my fellow-artist and perhaps each one friend of ours, but most importantly, Me. I guess the bravest thing I can do that day is to show up and be ready that only these people I mentioned will show up and appreciate my art. One person more and I will feel overwhelmed with joy.
Usually the main idea of the exhibit's vernissage is to give the private buyers a private look at the arts and the first dib to purchase the collections. But, for me, this is bigger than that. This exhibit will offer numerous avenues of connections and belonging and constructive criticism which will all make me grow professionally as an artist.
So, I can only wish for the best, but even only a handful of people would mean the world to me on that day.