It's the Arco week, the big art fair in Madrid. Galerie Forsblom is going to show there my Saucy Suicide Narco Nacho painting. My friend and collector Jaakko comes here today and on Wednesday we go together to the fair.

I think I must consider myself a successful artist, at the moment I have two museum solo shows at Serlachius Museums and Bury Art Museum. I shouldn't complain but my situation as artist in the country where I live is miserable. If we don't count the fair, the last time my works were exhibited in Madrid was six years ago.

When I moved to Spain fourteen years ago, I thought I was going to be a Spanish artist and that Madrid was going to be the epicenter of my activities but that has lamentably never happened. People always ask me why I don't show my works in Spain and I reply that maybe the level of the Spanish art is so high that I have no chances.

However, I go once again to Arco with big hopes of being discovered by the Spanish art world. Wish me good luck!

People are always calling me a mirror and if a mirror looks into a mirror, what is there to see?

Andy Warhol

Art is not a mirror to hold up to society but a hammer with which to shape it.

Vladimir Mayakovsky

I've been unsure of my role as artist - should I be a Warholian mirror that shows the world as it is or Mayakovsky's hammer that breaks that mirror. Last week I realized that I want to be neither a mirror nor a hammer.

I want to see myself when I look into a mirror - I want to be an active asset in the society. However, I'm not a hammer but a nail - a nail that kids put on teacher's chair. I want to be the pain in the ass of the society, a very uncomfortable artist. Maybe this sounds too ambitious - in the reality I might not be a nail but just a whoopee cushion.

I've learned to handle stress and multiple big projects at the same time but when I got home on Sunday, I was totally exhausted. This time I have had some health issues that made working even a bit more challenging.

I need several days to land back to my normal daily life and yesterday I had promised to give a lecture at the Talavera Art School. I was tired but the students infected me with their energy. It's a pity that I've never been offered a professorship anywhere, it could be a fountain of youth for a middle-aged artist.

Now I have lots of office work to do and in the weekend I've promised to play Monopoly with my kids. I have almost two weeks at home before the next adventure.

Mänttä is a dark and cold arse end of nowhere but the best museum of Finland is located in the town. Serlachius Museums is my biggest collector - without them I wouldn't have a middle-class life style. Being here is like being home or maybe even better, they treat me like the king of art.

However, the weekend here would drive me insane. Tomorrow I catch a train to Helsinki and spend the weekend in the city before finishing the exhibition next week. Closing borders opens soon!

I'm back home exhausted but happy. White Trash Blues looks amazingly good at Galerie Forsblom beautiful space. Several museums have acquired or reserved works. I know that I can pay the mortgage this year, so I feel relaxed. Visitors have liked the show a lot, including Finland's conservative minister of culture. Should I be worried? I've always said that I wanted to be hated but maybe I enjoy sometimes positive feelings too.

I try to rest during this week and next Sunday I'm off to Finland again, this time it's Serlachius Museums in Mänttä and my Closing Borders exhibition.