the right people make it easy
Chosen attracted the friends I’d made in the last, brought then to the present and made things easy. They are artistic and also have been rejected by the wider ecosystem. So an opportunity to take part in their group exhibition that came to me (on Chosen) ended up being the best response to having my work torn apart, criticised and projected on with some of the wildest accusations ever from my other group -
I’ve rekindled good friendships and made new ones. Chosen’s self worth scripting made it happen.
CFW has been peeling back some of the deeper ideas and false expectations I’ve made about life - that I should expect struggle, to be sidelined, to be observed and on guard in public. To not belong. Yet I do belong - I’m a creative in a very creative city.
In fact in a lot of the gentrified areas I belong. So why am I carrying beliefs from decades past? Society has changed.
CFW also made me think about my late father, how he coped in a new country, raising a family and navigating his own shadow - through me. And yet he tried to make a little effort to get to know me. It doesn’t excuse his violence towards me, but it’s learning to have a more balance view of him, which helps in understanding my own traits within relationships.
Anyway, you know Chosen works when family sees its beautifying effect and want to marry me off 
makes me want to go back to the gym…
Same pattern with my ex (who I know is regretting that now…)