On selling my first painting and overthinking | #8

I sold a painting this weekend to a passerby at the exhibition!

Hey friends, I’ve had a whirlwind two weeks with a 19 hour flight back from Australia last Friday and straight into a weekend of exhibition at my art studio.

I sold my first painting at the exhibition to a journalist and art collector:

Selling my first painting taught me to not overthink. I realised that I am SO prone to being an over-thinker and this is typically to my detriment. Let me walk you through the things that landed me with selling my first painting:  

At some point at the end of 2021 while I was writing a lot with Foster, I realised this deep yearning to start painting. I shared with some Foster friends that I was going to enrol in a painting course at the start of 2022. By March 2022, I hadn’t enrolled in a course because I saw that I was going to be away and the idea of missing even one or two sessions didn’t feel good to me so I didn’t enrol altogether! 

Eventually I started making my way to life drawing classes in the summer and enrolled for my first painting class in August 2022. I loved mixing colours, observing closely and painting shapes to make things come alive on the canvas. I was hooked! I decided to start looking for a place where I could paint regularly and that was when I came across Dulwich Art Group in Denmark Hill, South London. 

I remember the first time I went there in September 2022, there was an ex-professional ballet dancer modelling and I painted him in a few colours:

By January of this year, painting or drawing at this art studio had permeated my week’s schedule. It became the main thing I did all week and the main place I spent my time outside of home and my job. I was painting prolifically, experimenting wildly and progressing rather quickly. 

Progress pics:

Being in the community allowed me to meet many artists from a variety of backgrounds and sometimes viewing the beautiful work they were making would make me sheepish. I’d ask myself what I thought I was doing amongst these amazing artists and how I could ever match their capabilities. But somehow I didn’t feel completely in despair and instead continued to turn up diligently.

At some point, I found out that the art studio was going to have an open house and was inviting everyone in the community to exhibit their work for a fee. You could get a half board for £65 or a full board for £95. Looking at the dates made me realise that it was quite close to my dad’s 60th for which everyone was going back to celebrate. At the time I wasn’t planning to exhibit but I really wanted to attend the exhibition to cheer others who I’d painted next to on so I made sure that my flight back from Australia would land the day before the exhibition giving me some time to rest and attend it. Around a month or so before the exhibition, I had started to paint a few pieces that I liked. 

I decided to apply to have a half-board then a week or so changed my mind and went for a full-board instead. I thought if I was going to exhibit then why not go the full mile? My pieces are quite big anyway and I’d be able to showcase around eight of them. The good thing with the process was that I had to share a bio describing who I was as an artist and my work. 

This led me to writing the following up which I have been using to describe my work: 

Journeying from the corporate world of Al and data to embodied movement of yoga and massage to creative writing, Caryn felt like she finally arrived home in oil painting.

Taking a liking to painting the backs of women as a tiny rebellion to the status quo, she seeks to abstract form by honestly painting shapes as she sees them rather than how they should appear.

While many prefer to position their easel to focus on aspects of the body considered beautiful and desirable to paint, Caryn is curious by the unpopular or undesired perspectives and in that developed her fondness for backs.

Questioning the mainstream ways of doing things, and turning her own back where necessary, Is central to how she views the world and forms her judgement of what constitutes a meaningful life.

She brings this philosophy into her early yet enthusiastic and devoted practice as an artist.

Private View party with friends:

The week before I flew out to Australia, I had to get my frames made and even though I’d only attended half of a framing workshop, I was left with the two machines (mitre saw and stapler) to figure out how they work. Initially I spent about an hour cutting up the mouldings (wood that makes the frames) too long or too short and for the life of me could not figure out what I was doing wrong.

About sixty minutes in, I decided I was going to give up and this was not the year for me to exhibit. As a last resort, I looked up instructions on YouTube and thankfully came across a demo of someone using the same mitre guillotine I had at the studio. After that, it was off to the races. I was slamming the guillotine down on the wood hard and fast and smashing out my own frames. By the end of the week I’d made eight frames and coloured them to suit the painting I was going to frame in it. 

I didn’t even have time to think about whether my work was good enough to go up or whether I should change the colour of the frames or choose a different frame design. I had to get it done and even though it was truly far from perfect, I had to accept it. I was flying halfway across the world in a couple of days and didn’t have room to ruminate or question myself. 

The day after I flew back, I had to be at the studio by 9 am and we all had to hang up our own works -- meaning bring a hammer, use nails and figure out how to measure the frames so they all sit nicely on the boards. 

I kept reminding myself that for me to have framed all my works and to be there at the exhibition was a total feat in itself and I should be very proud. But to have a complete stranger and art collector come up to me and tell me they were planning to buy my piece was an absolute bonus. I was shocked and yet grateful and also calmly felt sure of myself. 

Hadn’t my gut told me this was something I ought to do? 

Hadn’t my body compelled me to spend my summer doing painting courses and then developing it into a weekly activity? 

Hadn’t I negotiated my way with the studio owner to help him with data so that I could come to the studio whenever I pleased? 

Hadn’t I boldly exhibited my work fearing nothing and expecting nothing either? 

After selling my first piece, I realised that trusting my body’s intelligence was probably a good thing and thinking less could do me good. 

If you want to follow my early but hopefully lifelong art journey, my Instagram is @caryntanart. Hopefully I will have a website and other things coming up! 

Thanks for reading and I hope this inspires you to go against the grain, to courageously lean into the thing you feel compelled by even if it makes no sense at all. If it has, share with me what that is, I’d love to know!

Love,
Caryn