Permission to Pause - Art Residency

Last year I carried more responsibility than usual.

At work, part of the team changed and I had to hold more weight than I was prepared for. My focus shifted almost entirely to the office, to keeping things moving, to not letting anything fall apart. Alongside that, I tried to hold on to my artistic work. I accepted projects, worked at night, and kept going.

In November, I began working on the Vogue project. It demanded concentration, discipline and presence. I gave it everything I had left after my daily work. I don’t regret it, but I was running without pause.

When I applied to the Yaritori residency in Japan, supported by the Instituto Camões, it felt different from anything else I had applied to before. It didn’t feel like an opportunity on paper. It felt like a dream. Japan has always felt unreal to me, almost like a film I keep returning to. This residency became a place where imagination and reality touched. Forty five days where I could finally turn things off. A moment where I could be only an artist. A time to work quietly on my skills, to grow, to breathe.

It was also the only context where pausing my daily job made sense. I wasn’t taking a holiday or escaping responsibility. I was investing in my artistic journey. It felt like a professional opportunity, not an absence. A reason that justified stopping. I wouldn’t have had to explain myself or defend the decision. The residency carried a weight that made the pause legitimate. Saying no to daily work for forty five days would normally feel impossible, even irresponsible. But this was different. This was the kind of opportunity that gives permission to stop, without having to ask for it.

Today I found out I was not selected.

What hurt was not only the no. It was how suddenly the dream collapsed. I had already placed myself there. I had already lived those days in my head. Losing that future felt like waking up too early from something that had finally given me relief. I don’t apply often to open calls or residencies, and hearing a rejection without explanation leaves a silence that is hard to sit with. Not knowing why. Not knowing if I am on the right path. The explanation came later, but the impact had already landed.

I realised something important today. I am tired. Deeply tired.

And tired people don’t need motivation. They need relief.

My last real break was November 2024. The fact that everything looks the same in January matters. The fact that the future feels long and uninterrupted matters.

The residency had become a symbol of permission. Permission to stop. Permission to focus. Permission to be only an artist. I know that forty five days of freedom don’t create an artist. But forty five days of relief can save one. Painting, however, has not disappeared from my life. It remains the moment where I turn off the noise of daily work. Where I stop reacting and start paying attention again. Art gives me satisfaction and completion. It is not an escape, but it is a pause.

This letter is not an answer. It is a record of a moment. Of wanting something deeply, of losing it, and of understanding why it hurt. Not because I am lost, but because I care.