What to do, what to do....

I don't know if I mentioned it in an earlier post - I could go back and look through my previous pieces, but nah! - but I had decided about two months ago, to see how many followers I could gather in one month on Instagram. That was two months ago and I seem to have plateaued at 92; I started about two months ago, maybe a bit longer. The idea behind getting more followers was that if I could, then I would try to earn some supplies money using Patreon. For that to work, I would have to have patrons and in order to get patrons, I need exposure. Well, I think the time has come to face up to the fact that I still do not have enough of a business approach to art to be able to, as they say, monetize it. I will continue posting on Instagram because it is fun.

What I have concluded from my short, second, attempt at follower-gathering, is that I am not very good at it. I suspect there are things I could do to get more exposure, such as following more people, keeping track of who I am following, posting regularly, putting interesting comments on my posts, etc. Well, all I seem able to do out of all that, and after the initial two-day focus on 'following more people', is post a photo-a-day of what I am working on. I think I have only skipped, on average, about one day a week which is, imo, not bad at all. Of course, just posting daily is not enough.

I once again have to admit that I prefer to paint, draw, think and write rather than focus on getting exposure. As I am sitting there, going through all the people on Instagram who I could follow in the hope that they would follow me (what for actually?), all I can think of is 'what a waste of time! I could be in the studio painting or working on the latest meandering or writing a blog/the book/a story/a shopping list or drafting plans for that sculpture that I'm hoping to have finished before the weather gets too wet or too cold to be able to put it outside to dry it out. Basically, anything other than painting, drawing, writing and the sculpture plan seems like a waste of time. It makes me extremely restless. It is very unpleasant and as there is no guarantee of success, it does not seem worth it.

Plan B, because one should always have a plan B (although this one was actually part of plan A), is to go to a few mairies and enquire about exhibition locations in their towns. I'll start with the one in our village and see what that would cost. If I could just sell one painting for the same price as the last one I sold, then I would be good in supplies for the next six months. If I could sell three, I could pay for the new studio roof and if I sold five, I could pay for supplies, the roof and a glass door on the studio so that I would have daylight in there at long last. I used to paint at night because I find it easier to just get lost in the work, but now that I have a studio that I have to get to through a spider and centipede playland, I have had to adapt to painting during the day. If I get the glass door, that problem will be resolved and I can paint at night (and during the day) like before. I would only have the bats to contend with outside the studio and that is nothing compared to the spiders and centipedes in the dark space between the barn door and the studio door.

So, wait a minute! why is this called "What to do, what to do...."? Was I wondering what to do before I started writing? or was I wondering what to do as in: write a blog post or keep working on the drawing? who knows?

Also, I have been thinking about the fact that the only person who reads these posts is me. Well, if I want to be honest, once I have written them, I don't actually read them,

so really, nobody reads them. Is there a point in writing them, then? Forest, tree, noise, sound.... yes, well, that's ok I suppose otherwise I would not keep writing them, would I? They must serve a purpose. Having said that, I do think I write these because the book is on hold so that I can paint. It seems to be one or the other, infuriatingly. I live in a constant missing the other situation. All the research I did for the book for the past - what is it now? - ten years, is sitting there being forgotten. When I get back to the book, I will once again have to go through all that research to piece it all back together and try and pick up where I left off. It seems huge, but at the same time, I feel a pull, a need, a drive to write that book. The same pull, need and drive I have for painting/drawing/sculpting. I cannot do all of them at the same time and so I constantly have to make an impossible choice. Ah! well! for the moment, it is painting and drawing and procrastinating about the sculpture and that's that. I will probably pick up the book-writing if I cannot get any exhibitions organised or when the exhibition(s) have ended. That will be either very soon or in a long time. So I blog to nobody in the meantime.