3 p.m. in Italy. Between 8 and 10 a.m. in America. My #Nostr begins to wake up and the notes start to flutter.

There's this painting in my studio I've looked at every morning for almost a year. Not because it's my best. But because every day it shows me something different. Some days I see the storm in the clouds. Other days I see the calm beneath them. The painting doesn't change. I do. And I understood that this is art's true function: not to say something once and for all, but to keep speaking while you change. A good painting never stops telling. Here it is 👇

Plebeian Market

#art #artstr #painting #isolabellart

I don't make art to sell paintings. I'm a graphic designer. I earn fiat. I pay bills. But I know that when I'm 65, the pension they'll give me will be worth nothing. So I'm building my own. In Bitcoin. Through art. Every painting sold isn't just a transaction—it's sovereignty stacked. Every sat earned is freedom I'm claiming before the system decides I'm too old to matter. This isn't about surviving today. It's about thriving when I can't work anymore. Art isn't just expression. It's insurance against a system that doesn't care. Art gave me my skill. Bitcoin gave me the tools. Nostr gave me the community. Now I'm painting my way into a future I can actually retire in. #bitcoin #art #nostr #isolabellart

GM We are not just matter. We are consciousness that observes and free will that chooses. Every moment is a creative act of being.

The Scent of Silence Lately, when I paint, I no longer look only for light. I look for what can’t be seen — the air itself. The salt before the wave, the wet grass before dawn, the faint smell of rain before it arrives. I’ve spent months painting silence, but silence too has a scent. It’s in the way colors breathe, in the light that doesn’t just illuminate — it lingers. Maybe painting isn’t about showing what you see, but about letting others smell what you felt. And when that happens, a painting stops being an image — and becomes a memory of air. #art #artstr #painting #isolabellart

"How did you make that sky?" Wrong question. It’s not how. It’s why. Technique can be learned. Vision can’t. I can teach you how to mix blue, how to blend, how to build depth — but I can’t teach you to see silence in a cloud. That, you have to find yourself. And when you do, technique becomes just a means. Never the end. #art #artstr #painting #isolabellart

I mean. I used to spend hours looking at other artists work. Not to learn. To compare. It paralyzed me for months. Then I stopped. Not because comparison is wrong. But because it was killing what made my work really mine. View quoted note →

I stopped looking at other artists work to compare it with mine. Not because I don't like it. But because comparison kills creativity. "Theirs is better." "Mine isn't original enough." "I should paint like them." All lies. Your work doesn't need to be better. It needs to be yours. And "yours" isn't measured against "theirs." Amen #art #artstr #painting #isolabellart

L'ho già detto altre volte, ma ogni tanto ci ripenso. Voi non avete idea di quanto mi farebbe piacere poter scrivere tutte le mie note e rispondervi in italiano invece che fare ogni volta la traduzione con DeepL e a volte controllare la fluidità linguistica con Claude. Un vero strazio solo perché sono pigro e non so parlare inglese. Adesso voglio vedere quanti di quelli che mi seguono di lingua anglosassone commenteranno questa nota. Presumo zero.

Someone told me: "You should paint more modern things. More contemporary." Maybe yes, maybe not. But I don't paint for 2025. I paint for 2125. Trends die. Truth remains. If in a hundred years someone looks at my paintings and feels what I felt painting them, I'll have done my art. Everything else is noise. #art #artstr #painting #isolabellart

"Painting is the art of slowing down time just enough to see what was always there." #art #artstr #painting #isolabellart

I painted these three within a short time of each other. Same palette. Same light. Same question: what does turquoise hold? Three moments where sky and sea forget where one ends and the other begins. They weren't meant to be a series. But they refused to be separated. Some things belong together, even when you don't plan them to. #art #artstr #painting #isolabellart