She is…..
I don’t know, I haven’t given her a name yet; or maybe yes.
Generally I never share images of my painting before its completion, its conclusion; but this time it’s different.
Something happened.
Today, after several weeks, I picked up the brush again.
I hadn’t painted for days, the last few weeks have been very demanding to deal with, a bad flu took over my body and I had to come to terms with myself and with the transience of who we are.
It must be said that I have spent the last period with really little regard for myself, I am speaking of my physical body: perhaps I was so worried about nourishing my spiritual part, about licking my wounds, that I didn’t consider that also, and above all, the body needs constant care, continuous attention: so in recent weeks, in addition to working with almost workaholic dedication, I have also painted, danced, written, but all this joy has led me to pay little attention to nutrition, not wanting to sleep because always too full of adrenaline and enthusiasm; which, of course, is a great thing, but as in any aspect of life, balance is always the best thing.
Then probably something was needed to block this process which, if continued over time, would certainly have led me to a nervous breakdown due to lack of sleep and other problems due to my somewhat “unregulated” life.
And so for two weeks I’ve been stuck at home with the flu which, according to the experts, seems to be quite aggressive this year: in the first week I only slept, slept, slept, the high fever didn’t allow me to do anything else, not even to eat; in the second week, with a different, almost new physique, I began to restore normalcy with a light but substantial diet, sleeping the right hours.
So today, as I said, thanks to the fact that I feel much better, I felt like putting my hands (and brushes) on my latest painting, which I started on an evening at the end of November but then, for the reasons I mentioned, I no longer continued.
It was beautiful, it was a bit like coming home, or like finding yourself in a place full of friends waiting for you to come back; I added a few details to “her”, to what appears to be a princess, or a queen, and as the brush passed over her profiles, slow and relaxed, I suddenly began to cry: when I start to cry while I paint, that is the incontrovertible signal of the Head – Heart – Soul connection and there, in that precise moment, I had a flash of lightning, a revelation, in short, I UNDERSTOOD.
I understood why, about a month ago, I “killed” one of my paintings.
Yes, that’s right, I literally tore a painting in which I had depicted a woman to shreds, and in that woman I immediately saw myself. Then that apparently violent gesture had almost shocked me, I wondered how I could have “attacked” myself in that way. Today I understood.
I understood that that was not me, but a “copy of me”, in fact the female figure that I had represented did not come from me, but from an image that I had seen and that I really liked, this one:
Well, I think that in that evening, in that jubilation of emotions, my Soul rebelled furiously against the umpteenth “copied version of me”, my Soul got tired of being something already seen, something prepackaged just like the others they want it, that’s the reason for that aggression, my Soul SAID STOP! For the last time.
What followed after was precisely the painting you see where she, the female figure, came out from within me, spontaneously, without any forcing and I feel that my Soul is now at peace.
Obviously the painting is not finished yet, but it seems that this little woman already knows which is the right direction to take. And I trust it to be so.
This year is now coming to an end and 2023, which is about to arrive, I feel will be a wonderful year, which will give birth to the best version of Annalisa (and Lili).
And to get to this it was also necessary to become aware of the repeated mistakes, first of all changing myself to please others.
It won’t happen again.
And also this time my Art has opened my eyes.
Also this time my Art saved my life.