identity crisis - yet again

Quite often I think of giving up painting altogether, but it is part of my identity here, part of the reason I am integrated into this village. I feel an obligation, as well as the occasional creative need, to paint.

Often people ask if I miss New Zealand. No, I don't. Do I miss anything from New Zealand? Yes, my books, Edam cheese, crunchy peanut butter, my well-positioned art studio and supplies, working with post-graduate art students, and of course it goes without saying, my family and friends. Today I realised that I also miss my art magazines, and my artist colleagues. I need some positive affirmation right now.

I treated myself to some magazines in Auburn, and this afternoon I flicked through them during siesta time.

I haven't been happy with what I have been painting for quite some time. Occasionally I get really positive feedback from someone I haven't met before, they have heard of me or seen my work, and I feel good. But mostly I feel insecure, tentative, not really painting as I would like to. I didn't manage to paint what I wanted to last month because I was busy with portraits. I think that work will join the "gallery in my mind", along with other series painted in absolute detail in my head but never allowed to emerge because life kept getting in the way.

An article in one magazine really spoke to me.

An American illustrator, Richard Johnson, pursued his project to draw soldiers and citizens in Iraq and later in Afghanistan. When interviewed for The Artist's Magazine (September 2008, Vol. 25, Number 7, p.p. 20, 21) he said "I wanted to put faces on soldiers when they're alive". This blog leaves me feeling very humbled. Some of us talk, but others do. I particularly liked this post.

But before you go to his blog, read this article published by visual editors.

Sometimes I guide soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan around the battlefields of Cassino. I show, I explain, I narrate. But really, I have absolutely no idea of what war is really like.

One of the paintings that I fear may remain in my mind is a war painting. Not literal, but symbolic. It was important to me, but I have lost the drive I need to paint it.

Do I change my direction, or do I still have work to do here?


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