Instructions:

How do your life aspirations and personal circumstances and priorities inform the specific decisions around the public presentation of your work? Make notes about this in your learning log.

Read pages 93-95 of Taylor, Stephanie, and Karen Littleton. Contemporary Identities of Creativity and Creative Work. 

Make reflective notes on your learning log.

“…a claim to a creative identification is fragile, even for someone with a demonstrable, sustained record of prior creative work, and/or financial success. External recognition can be achieved and lost again. The identification is therefore a work-in-progress within which changes in personal circumstances and working conditions need to be oriented…”  

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Unfortunately, I was unable to sign in to the OCA library for some reason, and the Scribd platform, where I have an account, did not have the book “Contemporary Identities of Creativity and Creative Work” by Taylor, Stephanie, and Karen Littleton. However, I understood the context of the task and put my reflective comments below.

Question: How do your life aspirations and personal circumstances and priorities inform the specific decisions around the public presentation of your work? Make notes about this in your learning log.

The solo exhibition with an element of private viewing, conducted in a very controlled environment—the guest list, the venue selection, artwork placement, and all communications with visitors — done by me, is consistent with my personality traits. I have always prioritised high-quality communication with selected and favourite people rather than attending large public events where people don’t know each other. So far, since I haven’t had a problem yet to handle large-scale public events, I feel very confident about how I will manage my events. I had a very positive emotional experience and got tremendous support for my artistic pursuits. Only a few people were my close friends; the others were absolutely free in their perception and reactions to my works, and they didn’t depend on me, so no one was manipulated. I think I managed to pitch my creative ideas to them because I had the time and opportunity, as well as connected with them on an emotional and intellectual level.

The week from July 28 to August 3d, 2025, was a truly transformative time for me: I officially and publicly established a new professional and personal identity, which was shocking for many people I know in person and via social media platforms. My first exhibition experience was profoundly impactful on me in terms of understanding the viewers’ psychological needs, their behaviour, and demands. I reached a new level of understanding myself as an artist and realised the points of power my artistic style and visual language have on viewers. Now I see even more creative perspectives; there is so much more to learn and experiment with. Enrolling in the OCA, B(Hons)FA program was one of the best decisions I made in my life. It is also worth noting that my own creative self-identification emerged many years ago. I have been making creative decisions about the size, colours, artwork, and creating a particular type of visual aesthetic, as I have always been involved in creating a vibe through visuals and semantics, as an integral part of my business in the wellness industry. I never entrusted these decisions about the space transformation and visual impact on my clients within my business premises to someone else. My new endeavour in establishing myself as a professional visual artist is a fantastic extension of my previous artistic ambition and confidence. This creative self-identification has been a part of me, and it will always be with me; it doesn’t depend on public feedback and recognition, although it will be important to me. I am very determined to navigate the public exposure domain professionally. I entered this occupation later in life, and it has a certain advantage: my artistic and creative practice makes me self-sufficient, calms me down, and brings me happiness, even before I obtained my first tiny fraction of public recognition. I don’t chase fame because it is not what makes me truly happy. I don’t have the public attention deficit; my creative impulse doesn’t depend on the amount of public attention I get.