Atelier Talk: "Hello 2024" ~January 2024~

Self-portrait 2023 (Partial View of progress image)

Hello Everyone,

I'm happy to have you here reading this blog in 2024. Today I would like to share a few thoughts..., but not too long since it's still the beginning of the year. 

There are a few new things I have been thinking of doing in 2024. One of them is to share some topics I have been sharing on this blog in videos. Would that might be interesting to you to check them out?

Last year was the year I was asked many times "Do you want to be famous?" I had asked this in the past but it was interesting that in 2023 many people suddenly started to ask me the same question (for different reasons) but as if it was coordinated. What do you think?  I'm curious.

When I'm asked this question in person, I tend to answer vaguely and I have a feeling that nobody has yet received a satisfying response from me.

Self-portrait 2023 (Partial View of progress image)

For me, I would rather not have my face to be recognized too widely while I'm still young and productive. It is because certain anonymity is a key to creative freedom for some artists which I feel I am one of them. And there is no going back once you are a public figure.

But recently I also think as I learn how art can be seen by more audiences, I do want my art and my existence as an artist to be known sooner than I previously envisioned. 

Ever since I was a child, I have never felt attraction to celebrities and idols whose popularity rules their existence. I have never been obsessed with an individual including any stars, celebrities, historical individuals, and anyone that I have never known closely in person in real life. 

Until today this didn't change for me. Especially after I decided to dedicate my life to the world as an artist, it reassured me that they (or popularity) are opposite of what I am pursuing and the kind of role I expect my art to have in society. 

"New Home, Black-Tail Gulls" (Partial View of progress image)

But after the significant losses of my family, I think my answer to the question shifted slightly. 

I believe that everything happens for reasons in this universe and it is also about the change in my mind, the events that caused the change, the timing that happened, and the effect on my family and surrounding others. The losses in my family made me rethink many things, and I want to take them sincerely. 

There was one thing I promised to myself when I decided "to live as an artist" not only being born an artist, and that was "everything I do is for my art to grow". That has been one thing that hasn't changed in my heart.

I am looking forward to seeing what I can share with you in this blog this year. 

- Natsumi K Goldfish  01.07.2024