Life, they say, is what you make of it.

This year, after a long period of hustling, I finally feel that I am choosing what is best for me, with self-love, with the full knowledge that my choices and approach to work and life in general, although desired by many, are not particularly popular, except perhaps among digital nomads and here and there the intrepid self-employed like myself.

Yes, I am more of a nomad this summer than ever before. For me, breaking away from absolute identification with work gives me freedom, which is a path to enrichment, charging, expanding horizons, exploring the world, gaining another perspective on myself.

Continue reading The Gifts of Summer at Acrista Cafe.

Over the past few years, I have observed with sadness and weariness that the efforts I make on a daily basis to maintain the Facebook page fall far short of the desired results, needed for me to function as a freelance artist.

As a person, who does almost everything by myself, this means I spend a huge amount of time, energy and mental resources figuring out “what to post each day” to keep the page “alive”. I invest in expensive art products, photo sessions, video scripts, video shooting, video editing, planning posts, writing texts for them… And all this only reaches my top 10 fans (thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support ), out of all the 20K that have liked and/or followed my page, because that’s how the algorithm “works”.

Continue reading Out of the Matrix at Acrista Cafe.

In a search for more depth, contemplativeness and focus, and generally a slower and more aware lifestyle, this year everything seems to be happening more slowly with me, somehow inertly and less „visibly“. In these times I am working on two really long and slow projects…

1. A total redesign of the acrista.com website: the aim is for the site to become an actual online gallery, where you could directly purchase original artworks or order prints, and have them delivered anywhere you want. You will be able to log in to your personal account and track your orders, your cumulative discount and lots more.

Continue reading Acrista Art projects in progress at Acrista Cafe.

The last couple of days I realized that this year it’s been ten years (!) since (like so many others) I hooked on the obsession called social networks. Ten years! So many different behaviors appeared, such crazy habits were created… Lately alongside the subject of minimalism which I increasingly recognize as my own, I try to look (on my newsfeed) from a distance, not to succumb to the massive turning into zombies (what was your year in facebook, holly crap). And since I’ve been feeling a long-established tendency for a while, I want to explore it a bit. This tendency is about the feeling that above our heads there is a cover of stiff, compressed air which presses us every day, every minute, continuously.

Continue reading Under pressure at Acrista Cafe.

The more the consumer hysteria and information cacophony around me grow, the more I am interested in the minimalism as a way of life. I recently added the youtube channel of Matt D’Avella and started to return to the ideas of drastic clearing and releasing everything (and I mean everything) unnecessary. This concept has been close to my heart for years. I am one of those OCDs who regularly throw out and rearrange, otherwise I would not be able to function normally.

I am a fan of minimalism in architecture, interior, fashion and things in the wardrobe, devices and relationships.

Continue reading Minimalism at Acrista Cafe.

Sooo… a new year, as a blank canvas. What will I paint on it? Who knows?

I did not have space to write a post about 2017 (because the last 4 days I bravely ventured in studio repairs), but it was a good year. Saturated. With good and not-so-good days. With precious inner work, with journeys, with learning to say ‘no’, with almost all paintings completed, with wisdom earned the hard way, with a string of minor but adorable moments, with shared ‘ordinary magic’ as a friend named them. I feel grateful for all of them.if there was something I learned during the last years, it was that I could not and I did not want to plan.

Continue reading A new year – new beginnings at Acrista Cafe.

In front of the fireplace again. After a heady, enthusiastic, but also very tiring week of exhibition opening, meetings and conversations with beautiful people, physical exhaustion from packing and carrying up and down and back and forth of paintings and tons of catalogues, it is time for a well deserved breather. While I am staring at the hypnotizing flames I remember a recent article by Ani about her 101 things to be thankful for from the past year and without conscious intention I start to list mine… They are far from one hundred and one, but they are all beautiful.

Continue reading Thoughts in front of the fireplace at Acrista Cafe.

Every exhibition has a story, just like every painting in it.

The story of “Delicate and Passionate” began in December 2014 when the British gallery owner Andrew Hillier contacted me with an invitation to work together in his new gallery, where I was going to exhibit next to artists like Vladimir Volegov, Andre Kohn, Atroshenko. During our discussions, the vision of the desired collection of paintings gradually started to take shape – oil canvases with more delicate stories and ones of the more passionate flamenco series.

Alas, the joint project with the gallery did not come to fruition due to Andrew’s deteriorating health, but the idea of the collection of paintings developed into the idea for an exhibition. 

Continue reading The story behind the “Delicate and Passionate” exhibition at Acrista Cafe.

Continue reading “Art is not work; it’s playtime” at Acrista Cafe.

Daniel Sroka: Surviving as an artist in a bad economy >>

Lori Woodward Simons: Freedom vs.

Continue reading To be or not to be… at Acrista Cafe.