Seven Faces, One Chance
This has been the most intense week of painting of my life. I’m working on a project that could take me to another level — seven portraits, seven lives to honour. In the last six days I’ve finished four, and I feel emptied out. My mind is heavy, my hand shakes from the weight of what I’m trying to hold. I know I’m giving everything, yet I look at each canvas and doubt it. It’s as if what I’ve learned in these four years isn’t enough; I keep feeling I must push further, though I’m already beyond the edge of strength.
I still have ten days left, eight of them full working days at the office. That leaves only nights. For the first time, one session of painting is never enough; the paint itself fights back, refusing to dry before I must move on. I wish I had more time — time to explore, to let colours breathe, to make mistakes and learn from them. But there’s no space for error now. This project must be born in record time, and every decision feels irreversible.
This is also a project of hope. Never have I invested so much of myself — not only in time and energy but in money. Each painting easily reaches fifty euros in materials alone. I’m not living with abundance; I rarely spend money on myself. Usually, I buy the cheapest canvases, but this time I chose linen, real linen. Thirty-nine euros for a white rectangle — and I keep asking whether I can transform that white into something meaningful. Am I investing in a dream, or simply spending what I don’t have on a belief that might never pay back? Perhaps hope itself is the real material I’m using here — invisible, expensive, and necessary.
Today my back ached, my arm trembled, and my head felt like a spinning compass without north. My studio is too small to hold all the canvases; I can’t even see two portraits side by side. I paint one at a time, hoping that when they finally meet, they’ll belong to the same world. I’m trying to create harmony without seeing the orchestra.
Never have I used so much of what I know — colour theory, texture, rhythm, light. And still, knowledge doesn’t stop the fear. I’m painting to honour creators, to pay tribute to those who left a mark through imagination and courage. That alone is a heavy responsibility. I was the one who proposed this idea, and someone believed in me enough to make it real. If it works, it will appear on the biggest stage I’ve ever known. I can’t say more, but that thought alone keeps me awake.
Tomorrow I have to present the progress. The paint is still wet. I don’t even know what to take, how to speak about work that doesn’t yet breathe. I’ll have to pretend confidence, show conviction, smile as if I were proud when inside I’m only worried.
I’ve become a ghost of routine: walking Rocky while thinking of brushstrokes, eating dinner beside Tarla while staring at photos of the paintings on my phone, falling asleep counting what still needs to be fixed. I am inside the paintings even when I’m outside the studio.
But this is the moment I fought for — the chance I dreamed of. I’ve worked too hard to arrive here and fail myself now. Pressure hurts, but it’s also fuel. I can only hope that when the paint dries, I will look at these seven faces and recognise myself inside them — the tiredness, the risk, the faith.
