BazilRacoondog
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Art exhibition is open
🕑 Added 2024-05-17 18:11:31 +0000 UTCToday I finally returned back from my long-waited exhibition trip to Moscow, I spent 2 days there from May 15 to May 16 and it was very full of good impressions but also full of stress as well. I didn't sleep well for three nights because first sleep was very short and I woke up very early to get to the train station in time, second sleep in a hostel wasn't super comfortable and long as well and the same for the third sleep in a train on my way back. Also didn't eat anything except three buns with lots of juice in these two days in Moscow which I spent all on my feet, my back and my legs were just dying and falling apart, I'm still recovering from such an experience, it's very hard to just walk from one room to another. On May 15th I helped the exhibition team a lot in order to get in time and finish all the last details before the private opening at 19:00 and there was A LOT of work to do. I thought I'll have some time to recover during the next day before the main opening which is also at 19:00 but curator invited me and other artists to visit one big contemporary art gallery in the morning and it was surely an awesome experience but it meant more and more walking for me.
Sadly I didn't have much time in my disposal for the main opening because my back ticket was bought for 21:45 and the road to the train station could take a whole hour so I had to stay for only one hour and a half and then run away from the exhibition opening like Cinderella. Honestly, I don't think I missed much because from what I saw it feels like main opening was nearly identical to the private one. And most importantly, I was worrying that I won't have as much time as I'd like to have to talk with Moscow furries invited to this exhibition and, well, this wasn't a problem because not even a single furry came... Despite a well described invitation post in a Moscow furry meeting group, despite it gained 40 likes and 10 reposts, despite I proved it with two group admins who both promised to come, nobody came there to support me. It was very upsetting and disappointing for me to see my plan to meet first irl furries in my life to fail so miserably. I never had much faith in Russian furries to begin with, I thought such an event can be a chance to break the ice and change my mind a bit but now I have even less faith, so fuck Russian furries. I don't want to sound so toxic and don't want to spoil my future relationship with local furries which maybe still has some possible future, obviously good people exist everywhere, I'm just talking about the majority. I know some aspects about Russian Furry Fandom segment background and why I'm an ugly duckling for it as an artist, hence why I never did any big attempts to get in touch with Russian furries except when they write me by themselves (which happens very rarely) so I honestly didn't really believe that a 100% American Memphis style furry art can really drive much attention from those who're mainly into generic mainstream anthro. Russian and American furries have a lot in common but also a lot of differences as well. I'm talking only to folks from America and sometimes West Europe not for no reason. I'm not saying that somebody is bad and somebody is good, we're just different, too much different. Even though we're all furries we probably live in too much different worlds and have no interest in each other. That's the sad truth.
There's still a chance to make me feel better if at least somebody come to my lecture at June 9 where I'll tell about my life way as an artist, how I switched to furry and what is furry fandom at all, furries will be allowed to come in fursuits there and I'm hoping it can help to tempt some fursuiters but honestly the chances still feel slim for me.
As for the exhibition experience in general, it was very good. It's a pretty high level underground art exhibition with a lot of talented artists presented in a very good way and a lot of visitors came during these two openings. My own exposition impressed a lot of people even though it didn't have much to exhibit, it really stood out in a contrast to more grim and sad contemporary art which is much more typical for Russia, many people pointed it out, really loving the way my works fill them with joy and agreeing with my views I express through such work. I didn't have much time to tell about furry in detail because this event is not long enough to give each artist a lot of time to talk about their art but still I said at least something, let's hope I'll have the same large audience on June 9.
I have very few good photos for now, hopefully will get more later because there were really a lot of people taking pictures all the time.
However, there's still a reason why I felt like I don't belong to this place, to this audience and why I don't want to repeat such exhibition experience again. This reason was already described in previous posts but I'll repeat it again. I'm a 18+ artist. Period. I don't want to introduce myself as an sfw one, don't want to be perceived as one, I did one exception and don't want to cultivate this image further. I don't like my corners to be cut, I don't like to hide my real self, I'm a honest open person and I don't like to lie and make up lies about myself, it's easier to tell people truth or just don't tell them anything at all. This is why I quit communicating with Russian art society. If people can't accept the truth and who I really am then it's their problem which shouldn't bother me. And it was very sad to look in eyes of people smiling at me and loving my art while keeping in mind that if I dare to show who I really am then most of them will change their thoughts about me to opposite and take back everything good they said about my art. It was also very scary to hear "Can you share your contacts where I can see more of your art?" but thankfully nobody asked me this question.
Even if our country has an audience for such art (after all, the curator got especially interested in me right after I showed her around 20 examples of my nsfw art), the laws are still against it, LGBT is officially banned, you know, so no public gay shit for me. All that stuff left me with this bitter feeling that I probably had enough of Russian art life and this is probably the last time when I take part in it. I quit it long time ago and realized that I don't need it as long as I have furries from around the world supporting me, this time I got poked by a kind enthusiastic person two times but this is really the last time I respond to such offers. I'm trying to focus on good sides, that I got all my art material costs covered, got expensive train tickets paid and visited Moscow for the first time in 15 years, got some positive emotions and also there's already a chance that maybe the prints of my old shoe-trap tryptich can be sold but still it doesn't worth to sacrifice my main art business to participate in more events like this on a more regular basis.
So, I'm happy that this is finally over now and I can focus on my regular plans again. I'm very sorry for leaving my patrons without content and making my commissioners waiting, thankfully there's still almost half a month ahead and hopefully I'll manage to draw more stuff during this time.
Comments
eagonwild
love that suit!
tredain
Absolutely fantastic! Understandable you'd feel uncomfortable though.
