I suppose I would still consider myself a painter, I just never find the time to dive back into the discipline. Years ago I dedicated nights and weekends to painting. I was free from real-life responsibilities at the time and was exercising my “extreme introvert” tendencies. (I was recently told that I have an extremely introverted personality)
I loved the time I was able to spend in front of the canvas. It’s a space of reflection and anonymity. The puzzles of the world can be clearly seen, debated, and put to rest in the eyes of the one standing before it. At the time, I felt that I was living a dual life in the glass studio and in front of the canvas. One was full of immediate gratification, and the other was developing, evolving, moving at the pace of the changing seasons.
I hope to return to painting one day. I was enamored with Caravaggio, and I want to get back to his light. There was a truth in his canvases that I haven’t seen anywhere else. His paintings have always given me a sense of hope, even when they’re full of blood and severed heads because of the light. It is the darkness of his paintings that makes his light so bright, so hopeful. Think of Judith Beheading Holofernes. It is a grim image: the last moment of consciousness for Holofernes who is in shock because of what is happening. Judith is at the edge of a freedom that comes only through a moment of extreme darkness, and then the ever perfect, glowing warm light.