Yesterday I listened to the podcast (in Dutch) of  Irene Cecile, a Dutch illustrator who has a podcast on how to run your business in a nice way. This time she talked about Inktober, which is a popular challenge on Instagram in October to post daily a drawing made with ink. She had a lot of thoughts on this and especially whether an artist or an illustrator ‘should’ or ‘should not’ participate in this challenge. I was considering doing at least part of the challenge and Irene made me think this really through. 
In the end I decided not to participate because of a lot of reasons. The most important one being about freedom. I’ll explain. In my art practice I consider freedom one of the most essential values I need to act upon. Freedom in what I make and in what kind of materials I use,  is a big part of that. Committing in a challenge like this would let me violate that freedom of choice that I love to have every day again. Even though I would choose in freedom to enter the challenge. 
It’s interesting how I (and many others I guess) tend to accept boundaries in my art, maybe even long for them. Maybe it feels safe. But I also know that I would rebel against these on day two, maybe even day one of the Inktober. And more important: staying close to my freedom wish helps me making the best art I can and creates the biggest fun for me.
Soooo, thank you, Irene, for bringing me back to my own (non)sense again! 

By the way: this piece is made using ink (!), pen, markets and gouache.