Going against the grain

A lot of what I do is not by the book. Quite the opposite.

It's great to want to be self-employed and pursue your passion for creating art in the broadest sense. But if you don't have the slightest interest in the business side of things, maybe becoming a small business owner isn't the obvious thing to choose . . . !

It is my clear conviction that if you can imagine how you ideally want to live and work—how your everyday life should take shape—you can also create an environment and a space of opportunity that can one day make that dream come true.

No one recommends creating a business without the slightest regard for what other people concretely demand.

No one (any longer) recommends that you just sell your own time: everyone emphasizes the importance of finding a product or service that can generate a time-independent and preferably scalable stream of income.

No one recommends that you, as a self-employed person, embrace all possible disciplines; the faster you are able to specialize and create your own narrow and defined niche, the better.

If you have other options, no one actually recommends a career as a contemporary artist.

To be clear: When you have to create a turnover that can generate your own salary, but at the same time choose to spend the majority of your working hours on personal, not necessarily commercial projects, and on improving your skills in various artistic disciplines sooner or later you run out of money.

That goes without saying.

When I still choose to do exactly what everyone advises against, it is partly in stubborn defiance, because I refuse to believe that it should not be possible to create some viable alternative ways of doing things. (If the scenario can be imagined, it can also become reality). Partly because I can't look my daughters in the eyes and tell them that it's an opportunity to pave your own way and create your own career path if I don't at least give it an honest and persistent try myself.

Damn if we were to live in this little protected butterhole of a country and be so infinitely rich and privileged, and still not dare to go against the grain to create for ourselves exactly the future we dream of.

Why do we even have our well-developed imagination if we don't choose to activate it and bring ourselves into play?

Why let abstracts like money and "use to" and thus other people's norms and expectations put restraints on our own dreams?

Why not pay tribute to this open space of opportunity by just throwing ourselves headlong into a crazy attempt? Play?

I have no expectation of one day becoming rich and famous, but I do have an expectation that in the long term I can succeed in creating a good basis for my life as a contemporary, interdisciplinary artist.

It is my clear conviction that if you can imagine how you ideally want to live and work—how your everyday life should take shape—you can also create an environment and a space of opportunity that can one day make that dream come true.

Perhaps today is the day you yourself start going against the grain? I dare you.

Someone has to follow different paths if patterns are to be broken and the world is to be changed 💚🌍