NOTE: This was originally published as part of my newsletter in May 2026. Subscribe to my newsletter to receive the next Om Letter direct to your inbox once a month.
My dad (a fine artist) used to say: “The bigger the artists signature, the worse the art.” Of course, it was just a silly thing he said to make me laugh, but it stuck with me. For many years I made sure to stay behind the camera as the maker, never the subject. And my work was no high-brow fine art like his, but rather its more common, commercial cousin: a craft that could be acquired by anyone willing to put in the hours.
Making myself visible meant running the risk of becoming the butt of my dad’s joke. Or worse: to expose myself to the judgement and criticism of unknown viewers. Beyond that, it simply felt terrifying in an irrational way.
This year I’ve begun to unpick all the ways in which I’ve been in hiding. I’ve also come to recognise that there is no way of separating myself from what I create. Hiding myself and hiding my work are the same thing, and that choice has been costing me.
Add to that, the ever-present reality that exists for those of us whose families have a migration background, which in turn makes us perhaps overly aware that our privilege, and success have been built on the struggle endured by previous generations. Those who rebuilt their lives after being torn from their land and communities by war, or the aftermath thereof.
I think of my maternal great-grandfather who arrived in Switzerland illiterate, and taught himself to read and write in a foreign tongue in order to pass a notoriously difficult citizenship test. My paternal grandmother who fled a right-wing dictatorship by crossing a land border at night two weeks after almost dying during labour. Or my maternal grandmother who married for money to escape poverty, only to learn the hard way that wealth doesn’t prevent misery. And my mother forgoing her own desires so that she would stop being a financial burden on her grandparents just a little sooner. So there is within me a natural desire to not waste the privileges that have been so hard won.
These previous generations didn’t feel safe enough to ask for help, to be seen, to take up space, to sign the work, to take the credit when it was due. They were lucky to be alive, to live in safety and to have food on the table. For them, and for myself, I am determined to do things differently. To challenge my own discomfort and to question the assumptions I hold about myself.
So, you’ll be seeing more of me as I continue stepping out of hiding spot, both in person and in the online sphere. I still won't have the biggest signature out there as this isn't a vanity act, but rather a slow and imperfect practice of making myself visible to those who have been looking for me. To take up space in gratitude for those who made it possible, and to trust that signing my own work is not about making myself bigger than it, but about no longer hiding behind it.
With love,
OM x
Monthly Mantra
Ancestors by Emily Taylor
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Oceana Mariani
