“Wow, you’ve been really busy”
Last week, in the same day, probably 4-5 separate instances, several of my conversations began with the other person saying, “Wow, Rachel! You’ve been really busy!” or “You’ve been doing a lot of shows, lately, eh?” or “You’ve been a very busy girl!” These were mainly at art networking events like an opening reception. My response was essentially, “Yup, it’s been crazy! I’m looking forward to when it quiets down.” Knowing perfectly well my personality type, I won’t really let anything slow down or quiet down.
One person said, “Wow, you’ve been really busy on social media!” And for reasons, I wasn’t sure of, I felt ashamed that I appeared so much or so busy on social media. So my response was, “Yeah, I know, I’ll try to dial it back lol” to which they replied, “Why should you? It’s so awesome you’re really getting out there!”
The thing is, these questions and reactions lingered with me for the rest of the night. In fact, I was struck by them. Do I want to be known and greeted as an artist who is always super busy? Or I want to be known and greeted as an artist that creates some kind of meaningful impact with their art? Can it be both, or only one?
I feel that because I “lost” a few years of art momentum due to my fathers’ deaths and grieving, that when I re-entered my art practice and my local art world, I felt like I needed to work double-time to make up for lost momentum. I know that true momentum can never truly be recaptured through extra work, but in my head, I wanted to at least get to a point where I felt like I had equalled back out to where I was before my world shattered so thoroughly.
In this mindset, I’ve embraced mostly every opportunity that felt like a good fit (I’m not saying YES to everything, just the things I felt most mattered), with a general mentality of “Let’s try and see what happens? What is there to lose?” along with “I can’t say I was rejected if I didn’t try.” This gave me a bolder sense of time and energy in how I approached my art practice for this year.
But it also has been exhausting. So I do want to continue to do a lot of good, big things in my art practice this coming year, and to still get outside of my comfort zone. But I’d also like to strike a more sustainable balance of work, rest and meaning in the coming year. So, when I run into these circles next year, I hope I’m greeted with something other than, “You’ve been busy.” Yes, I’ve been busy trying not to be as busy.