Best time of my life as an Artist

In 2009 a year after I returned from my adventurous USA tenure as a contractor in the Design Industry, I started out full-throttle, in my fine arts journey, both in real-life and online.

My first art show was a group show way back in 1991 when I showcased my ever-so-favorite painting on canvas one of my oldest pieces that I made with the only brand of Indian oil paints available those days pre-internet days (attached here).

This original is still with me, that I have carried miles away from my home country as I work and live in Dubai as a long-time creative entrepreneur. The prints of this painting is being sold from time to time from my online art shops and is also a proud occupant of a cover design of a mother’s day journal released/published on Amazon only last week on Mother’s day.

Come 2008, when I returned back to Dubai after leaving my job in the USA. The reason I left Was because I wanted to still work-up slowly in a non-commercial setting, whereas I felt that in the United States of America, I would just get lost in the system, in the process of adhering to a new nation’s expectations. Fearing that I may lose my edge in the artistic industry, I returned to some pleasant times. I received a lot of commissions and interests in not only the now technology-based art but in the traditional fine art that still has been a silver-lining today.

That is when I realized stronger; my need to never abandon the analogue-traditional-mechanical skills one may have developed as passions from birth. So I decided that while sharpening my skills and keeping abreast in my traditional skills that I continue making a living out of my technology-driven expertise, knowing very well that the demand for that is soon diminishing. So while that took its course for commercial art and advertising business' to become lesser and lesser, By-the-way, let me swoop in this very interesting thought – “do not despair when tech-related jobs thin out, do not forget that we humans are creatures of habit-so as we practice and try to keep up with technology we start doing our tech-related work for example I am also a computer-animator doing animation to make my living 9-5 from 1994, over and over and over that has made me be able to do animations as if it is second nature like an involuntary muscle or human reaction. I don’t have to spend a lot of time thinking or planning or researching. In fact most of my animation work days are spent so resourcefully that while I work I am listening to useful podcasts or tutorials or documentaries or even music that I have would have never had opportunities if I was working as an accountant or marketing personnel or any other vocation.

While this grand phenomenon was happening of just doing my animation that was a passion born out of my first love art and settling in a profession, I grew my clientele and authority in my fine art and contemporary art business. I had the luxury to not ever promoting or commercializing my traditional art offerings. My clients in fine art who wanted to just pay for my arts worth grew. By 2012 I was already good with a community to also perform my fine art in front of 1000s of people. So this helped evolve a live artist, a contemporary artist and a writer and blogger. What better way to connect with a community! To give back to the world I thought.

Hence in our current post-covid vaccine era and with the scare of the 3rd and 4th wave of covid and erratic lockdowns all over the globe, I found answers from the chaos.

Last week I went fully online with my businesses with my blogs, book publications, authoring and creating multiple marketplaces. And folks, I am so glad to be in this Pandora’s box of social media just waiting for we artists to take advantage of.

There are no seniority, superiority, inferiority, and ageist tendencies in the online world. An 80 year old can work just as efficient as a fresher 20 year old or even a 13 year old in the online space. Co-mingling with each other and exchanging a world of experience with spontaneous modern thinking and each one of us have a great take-away always with the right attitude. The art just sells and nobody cares who and which race it came from. It is all in the eyes of the beholder.

So this is my message to all my fellow artists.

Among the 8 billion and odd of the world population, there's got to be one, a couple or a few as fans of your exact type of art or writings, who would love to purchase and enjoy our works of art.

So long till my next thoughts of promise in our new world of virtual work. .:o)