September Diary: The Space After
15 September 2026
Dear friends,
How crazy is it to be an artist producing artworks?
First, you need a bit of childlike excitement. Something that makes you want to create something at all.
Then comes the urge.
Organising tools and materials. Finding a place to work. Moving things around. Stealing a little piece of your surroundings that was actually meant for living, sleeping, cooking, storing things…
And then finally:
The painting.
All those brushmarks on a fresh canvas.
Mmmm. 😋
Spending hours doing something that feels absolutely right, while simultaneously not doing all the other things you should probably be doing.
Losing time.
Losing money.
Buying more art materials because they are simply too tempting.
And then, at some point, you have to figure out what happens to the paintings.
If you are lucky, someone invites you to show them.
So you make more.
You bring everything to the location.
You hang it.
You arrange it.
You invent titles.
You decide on prices.
You buy flowers.
You buy prosecco and snacks.
You invite people because, after all those hours and days of painting, you actually want to see the whole thing together.
Out there. On the walls. In the real world.
And yes, it is also rather fun to stand in the middle of four walls covered with your own paintings and wonder which dress to wear.
And to sip prosecco continuously simply because you bought far too much and, frankly, someone had to
drink it. 😅
Sometimes people come.
Sometimes they stay and talk.
Sometimes something sells.
Sometimes it doesn’t.
And sometimes you suddenly realise that
the show is over.
And then comes the slightly less glamorous question:
Where the hell do I put all these canvases?
Because you don’t have an atelier.
And even if you did, you probably wouldn’t want finished paintings to occupy the space where new ones are supposed to happen.
Puuuuuh.
But this is not going to become an essay about why one should or shouldn’t be a painter.
I am a painter.
I will continue to be one.
I am probably the most myself when I am doing what a painter does. And not only because I love the actual process of making things.
There is also all the emotional luggage that comes with it.
Doubt.
Excitement.
Fulfilment.
Frustration.
Happiness.
Disappointment.
Exhaustion.
And then, somehow, excitement again.
It is all part of the package.
What I have been thinking about lately is not talent.
I don’t really believe in talent as the thing that carries you somewhere. I believe much more in doing the work, practising, looking, failing, trying again.
But I do think about inspiration.
Especially after finishing something.
I made something.
I gave it everything.
I let it go.
And now there is a strange empty space where the thing used to be.
What fills that space?
Last week, I felt it.
After days in Faro, in the middle of Cidade Velha, surrounded by a huge festival, crowds of people, sounds, colours, faces, conversations, movement, things happening everywhere…
I urgently needed the opposite.
So I went deep into the Algarve countryside.
Orange. Ochre. Brownish greens.
Dry grasses.
An outdoor shower.
Ants in the food.
A friendly white dog.
Hot air over the pillow.
The sea somewhere on the horizon.
And almost no man-made sounds.
It was enough.
One deep breath.
And somewhere between that breath and the next one, a fresh dose of inspiration came back.
I stayed with a friend in a little gypsy caravan.
We cooked.
We laughed.
We crushed almonds over our morning coffee.
Nothing spectacular happened.
And that was exactly what I needed.
Because inspiration doesn’t always arrive as a big idea.
Sometimes it is simply having enough quiet inside your head to notice something again.
A landscape.
A colour.
A texture.
A person.
A conversation.
A laugh.
And this is perhaps where the whole slightly ridiculous artist’s cycle comes full circle.
We make things because we have to.
We show them because we want them to be seen.
And yes, of course I like it when someone sees something in what I have made. I am not going to pretend otherwise. 😉
So thank you to the people who came to see the paintings.
To those who talked to me about them.
To those who bought something.
And to those who simply dropped by to say hello.
You probably don’t realise it, but you are part of the cycle too.
You help keep the thing moving.
And perhaps that is one of the reasons I keep painting.
To carry a little bit of light into the day —
and occasionally discover that someone else can see it too. 🌟
And then, hopefully, back to the canvas.
Warm wishes,
Grażyna
