A Painting Is Not a Post A reflection on stillness, sharing, and protecting the slow work of the studio

There are days when it feels like the work disappears the moment it’s made.

A brushstroke is followed by a snapshot.
A quiet hour in the studio becomes a few seconds of video.
A finished painting is flattened, compressed, and pushed out into a stream that moves too fast to hold anything.

We’re told that this is how art lives now—always shared, always visible, always “engaging.”

But something in me resists that pace.

Because a painting is not a post.

A post asks for attention.
A painting asks for presence.

A post disappears.
A painting endures.

One is shaped to fit a screen.
The other is shaped to hold a world.

I’m not against sharing—I believe deeply in showing the work, inviting people in, and building quiet relationships around art.
But I also believe in protecting the difference.

A painting is the result of hours, sometimes weeks, of listening.
Of returning again and again to the same small questions.
Of tuning one’s whole self to form, and color, and light.

To reduce that into a moment of marketing copy—
Or to make the work in order to have something to post—
Is to reverse the flow of meaning.

There’s nothing wrong with sharing.
But I want the sharing to come from after the painting has said what it needs to say—
Not before I’ve even begun listening.

That means letting the work live privately first.
Letting it breathe in the quiet of the studio.
Letting it reveal itself slowly, without expectation or algorithm.

Then—when it’s ready—finding the right language and rhythm to bring it into the world.
Gently.
With respect.

Because the work isn’t content.
It’s not fuel for the feed.

It’s the trace of a moment of stillness.
And stillness doesn’t need to go viral.