I found myself writing about identity today. Becoming ill around four years ago, actually I got Shingles in August exactly 4 years ago and things went very much down hill from there, has caused me to have something of an identity crisis. I’m not the same as I was, how could I be? I read somewhere that when people are ill for a long time they go into the healing process and attempt to regain their health and their life to the way it was before they were ill. But most realise along the way that there’s no going back, you may or may not heal, but either way you are changed from the person you once were. I feel like I’m in the middle of this process, there’s no going back but I’m not sure at the moment who I am now or where I’m heading. And yes, some of that is deep emotional or maybe spiritual stuff, but some of it is just practical in real physical life stuff. My body doesn’t work the same, my energy is still limited and my weight and appearance have changed. I even don’t like the clothes I wear after years of mostly needing to feel comfortable, not going out very much, fluctuating weight and limited income. I don’t even know what I want to wear these days or how I want to look. Which led me to thinking about authenticity and how do you express your authentic self through dress? Is that even possible? Or just a consumerist concept of the modern age? Anyway I realised the real issues are about how I feel about myself and how I feel others see me.
I painted outside again today, it started to rain though so I had to pack up and move indoors. Where I continued painting in the tiny utility room perched next to the washing machine. I’m only in it for the glamour. I don’t especially like what I painted today, I have an idea about the sort of paintings I like, muted pastel colours, lots of texture and interesting gradations of colour. Mostly that’s not what I end up painting. I started by painting pink in the centre of the page and built up around it with small brush strokes radiating outwards. I gradually mixed in red and white, until the point where all I could think was I’ve painted a massive nipple, which wasn’t intentional, from then on, everything I added to the painting seemed to make it worse, so I was in two minds, whether to just go with it or try and make it look different. And if this is intuitive painting, just what exactly am I intuiting? I was more thinking about energy radiating outwards from a central source, more like a chakra maybe. Anyway image is below and you can judge for yourself. The facing page I covered in yellow using a larger flat brush, just because that’s what I felt like doing. The orange spots are caused by me closing the sketchbook briefly to get out of the rain.
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