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Priority setting
While I’ve been asked a few times (which is more of a comment every time I’m asked) “How do you find the time to do this?”, I actually am not sure. My simple answer is “in the wee hours of the morning” when I wake up and cannot go to sleep. But I do squeeze…
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A story about slowing down: Waiting for Ackee
As I was rushing to the You Do You Leslie Grove Gallery exhibit to get there for the 6 PM start time opening, I realized I had not eaten anything and would be starving by the time I arrived at the gallery. I could literally be a starving artist. I stopped by the KASPACE café,…
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Frame for a Gallery, Frame Your Mind
Last weekend, I had to frame my artwork. The Leslie Grove Gallery has particular specifications and this being my first ever indoor gallery exhibit, I wanted to make sure I did it right. Artists are procurement people Queue yet another trek out to DeSerres art supply store. The thing people may not think about being…
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The Experience of a Artistic Mock Jury
The other night, I was fortunate to have my application assessed in a mock jury by the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair. Long story short, my application would have been rejected just under the cut off by an average score of the two jury members. Seeing my work on a huge projector screen in front of…
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Making connections
I’ve been listening to Mindwandering by Moshe Bar and the role of the default mode network. The idea is that your mind makes associations with similar ideas. However the difficulty is that we create ideas based on past experiences and some associations may be unknown to us consciously. I tend to listen to multiple books…
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The Uncertainty Index
I have nearly finished Nassim Taleb’s Black Swan (yes, very late to the party). It’s a book about uncertainty. Some parts are very complex but it is written accessibly. The title of the book is based on the concept that for a long time, humanity believed swans were only white, until they came across a…
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Feeding off of other people’s likes
It always is really exciting when people like my work. I’ve tried now to post up the in-between scenes between my paintings on social media. I was surprised that it seemed to resonate with others. It is a virtuous loop. I still recall when little seeing other people’s sketch books and being in awe of…
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An Artist’s Guide on Failing Badly
I received my first rejection letter on my art in my application to a major art conference in Toronto. While it would be a blow, I’ve also been listening to the book Nobody Knows What They’re Doing by Lee Crutchley. It’s a book written for artists on their creative endeavours, discussing unique things that no…
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Getting unstuck
I haven’t posted much this week on the social media side and it’s very easy to fall out of a routine. There’s some saying (perhaps from the Power of Habit book by Charles Duhigg) that habits take time to form, involving a cue, routine, and then reward. What I had set up was the realizing…
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Making self-compassion to generate new thought patterns
I usually post two social media posts a week, one on Mondays and another on Wednesdays. The Wednesday reels are more time consuming. I have to edit the video and add text. Of course, I also need the time to make the actual art itself which is being posted. Making something else to substitute my…
