I seem to be suffering a crisis of confidence at the moment, and it’s all been triggered by a kind act.  I received an email this morning from an acquaintance who likes my art and knows I’ve been yearning to make a sale. In it, she has offered me the opportunity to make use of some good open space in a public venue to host a personal ‘exhibition.’ Now, neither of us really knows how to stage an exhibition but that’s neither here nor there. What has happened though, is that now I’m plagued with a ton of self-doubt about how good my art is.

I know I’m a good decorative artist, and my landscapes have grown better and better. But am I good enough to invite people, even strangers, to come and see it? I am just struggling to believe that I am. It didn’t help that I was hearted by someone on Etsy who does similar paintings and I feel they blow mine out of the water! I also don’t think I have enough to do an ‘exhibition’ as I only have 12 paintings right now and they range in size from 5″x7″ to 24″x28″. To me, an exhibition should have a lot of paintings of larger size.

I also have no idea how to invite people to such an exhibition or how to display my art. Would I need to invest money I don’t have into a bunch of easels? This isn’t a place where I can hang things on the wall as the owners would kill me for putting nail holes in the walls! Frankly, I’m worried about self-sabotaging a good opportunity but I really feel frantic and scared at trying to do this.

Does anyone have any good ideas on how to approach this that they can share?