A personal record of leaving social media behind, a commission for Australia, and the strange construction accident that changed my studio plans.
A foot through the ceiling
A literal foot fell through my ceiling during construction. I took it as a sign that I needed to rethink how I was living and working, although I did not expect the sign to be anatomical.
I do not remember a life without computers. In kindergarten I was already typing and drawing with software, while the artistic education around me still privileged drafting by hand. Later, finding work as an artist became tied to social media and the demand to post constantly.
The number that follows you
I was told I would not be considered for a gig without 10,000 followers. I spent a year blocking out advice to post more, follow trends and dance between images of war, cats and weddings. I am an artist, not a clickbait content creator.
When I looked at the pattern, the work sustaining me most did not come from social media. It came from people I had met and spoken with years earlier. They remembered me and later commissioned murals and installations or found ways to fund my travel to make them. They cared less about my digital footprint than my cultural footprint.
A commission with a long memory
I met Meg in Istanbul seven years ago. She was there for about ten hours, but stayed in touch. This year she commissioned two pieces for her new home in Australia, based on the place where she met her partner.
The reference photographs were low quality and blurry, which left room to work from their meaning: blue, green lakes and a huge sky. We made an inspiration page of textures, palettes and colours, and I began a seven-layer process. Australian customs law made framed canvas impractical, so we chose two soft chalk pastel pieces on paper that could be trimmed to flexible dimensions and placed into framing already purchased. Meg and her partner came to my bedroom studio in Berlin to collect them, then sent photographs of the works installed in Australia.
A different kind of connection
The commission showed me that I can be less visible online while still allowing people to understand how I work. The website, the newsletter and the archive can hold the deeper reasons behind a piece, rather than asking every work to become daily content.
I am trying to survive as a working artist while building a place where people can enter the work. The plan is a flat that is part home, part studio and part event space. I still have to solve the financing, but the foot made the need impossible to ignore.
The work after the feed
My digital footprint began before I could remember, likely with an innocent childhood photograph now available to train AI. I cannot reverse that history, but I can decide how I interact with the present. I am returning to email and to direct relationships because I care about creating.
A commission, an original painting, a mural or an installation can leave a physical and editorial record. That record lasts longer than a post, and it is the beginning of an archive with authority of its own.
Originally published on Substack