The winter of change

It’s a peculiar time here in Berlin, this late February. Stepping out of the house, hands tingle from the cold, yet birds sing as if it were spring.

Suddenly, I noticed that the children have grown. It’s as if it happened all at once, in the silent passage of time. And they have a different need of me. No longer the urgent and vital necessity of their early years, but rather a desire for connection, for mutual bond. They can see me go, knowing I’ll return. Greet me with a smile and welcome me back with a hug. I feel freer to come and go. To explore this city with its inexhaustible facets. To return to them, to cherish them, to read a story together. To go to the cinema, to see exhibitions. To return, to bake a lemon-scented bundt cake together. To go out in the evening with my husband and let grandma put them to bed. To have an aperitif with friends. To return. To go, to return. To reconnect with the outside world. To meet new people, people who are heading in the same direction as me. Yes, I refer especially to other artists. But not virtual ones, not Instagram followers. Artists in person, walking alongside you. That’s why I joined the Artup Now program.

And for another fundamental reason. Lately, while reading the requirements to join the Saatchi Art selling platform, I realized that my resume has a rather serious gap: I don’t have recent personal or collective exhibition experience. In fact, exhibiting hasn’t interested me much. I’ve been more focused on social-media engagement and independent work, in direct contact with those commissioning illustrations (be they individuals or companies). So, I started thinking about how to fill this gap. Applyng to exhibit at galleries, without even a recent exhibition in my resume, seemed rather embarrassing to me.

Before the Christmas holidays, I had a free consultation at the Kreativ Kultur Berlin consultancy center for creative, just to understand how to solve this problem. It was a dense hour of personal consultation, and yes, a way to step into a corner of Berlin’s densely woven artistic social network, apparently there was. I could ask to join the ArtUp Now program.

Artup Now is a program designed to place (or replace) artists in the context of local art circuits, to strengthen artists’ visibility and professionalism. Co-financed by the European Union, the Artup Now project lasts for 6 months, with weekly group meetings and various hours of personal consultation. It culminates in a collective exhibition at the project room of the renowned Kunsthause Bethanien in Berlin.

I must say that for me, the time of “Yes” has come.
Yes to my application to join Artfinder;
Yes to my proposal of works on Catawiki;
Yes to the growth curve of my followers on Instagram;
Yes to my proposal for collaborations with other content creators.
And it was also a yes, the response to my application to join the group of 10 artists in the Artup Now program.

So, here I am today, telling you about this program. Telling about leaving the house in the morning, taking the metro to Warshauerstrasse; arriving at the offices where weekly meetings are held, pouring myself coffee in the small kitchen (always equipped with hot coffee, tea, snacks, and treats); taking a seat between two of my colleagues; opening my notebook and welcoming the beautiful feeling of being an artist among other artists, in the context of this wonderful Berlin, which always has so much to offer.

To know how my participation in this program is progressing and to stay updated on the preparation of my first collective exhibition in Berlin, follow me on Instagram.

Thank you. See you soon!