Month: June 2016

Saturday musings

| Jenny Bhatt

So I spent my precious Saturday doing the odd weekend kinda things…sorting out my money, including going to the bank on time and filing papers to give the accountant who looms large on me if I don’t do it when she wants it. Sigh. And after visiting 3 opticians and trying hard to reach my Ophthalmologist cum friend all week, I finally bought a new spectacle frame and ordered my first pair of progressives. Very expensive, but I didn’t fall for the sales talk and buy the most expensive lenses, thanks to my Ophthal friend. So there, I’m almost done with the necessary to-do’s. More filing for the accountant tomorrow!

And in between all this I make new social media strategies to promote my work. My mind always has anxiety lurking around as far as marketing my art goes. Yeah, yeah, I know I’m a very good artist and an exceptionally gifted one (I chose honesty over modesty long ago) but years of this kind of anxiety is certainly not what I’d bargained for. I mean, I love art and I can go on and on making it but sometimes a stray thought tells me it’s consuming me. At other times, I wonder if I should succumb to having meaningless social interactions just change my blissfully isolated existence. Sometimes I have anxiety about not building an audience for my art if I don’t get out more.

Direct marketing has worked for me better than anything else before and I really don’t enjoy trying to figure out the ever changing gallery games and curator’s minds. Neither do I solicit favours. I just never learnt how to!

I’m also anxious about why the style I love the most and consider my most innovative work isn’t getting half as many likes as a style I left behind years ago.

So I spend my time reading about how to go about getting more people to see my art and try to put into practice, some of the suggestions I read about.

Thinking about what to get my dad for his 75th birthday.

And the day is over.

Is this how it’s going to be for the rest of my life?