I love this plan, thanks! (and the Zorba reference, haha!) I had almost forgotten how catastrophic is the assumption you can see so far in the future. It's good you reminded me. Your plan also fits in the way I want to organize things. Interviewing gallery owners and keeping a proper sketchbook are great ideas! I have thought of the gallery owners before, but I didn't have the confidence/skills level to ask them. Now I think I can handle it! Thanks for re-bringing it into focus It's all very spot-on.

I will be a bit picky in the "just a business thing", though, as I don't plan to work 24/7 for 400 euros/month (many people work like this here...ok, maybe not 24/7, but 12 hrs/day for 400-600/month-and often not knowing if you'll really get paid-is something that happens) So yes, I'll pass on the "dishwasher" offer and spend my time to search for a job that pays the basic bills at least.

I'm currently doing a market research in art, categorizing what I can do by price and audience. I'll choose the 1-2 easiest things from the list to start with, and then focus on exercising in production and marketing with them. I do need to buy my wallet some time though, so I'll treat "find something to pay the bills" as my new day job. And although I'm not sure I'll work on Materials Science, it raises my chances of finding something that is relevantly sufficient and I also like