I disappeared from life, then painted myself back in
By Maggie Buckle
Her gaze is steely, but she doesn’t seem upset. Actually there’s a playfulness to the portrait, her cheeks pulled slightly, the scribble across her mouth and the garish blue eyelash. Even defaced, it’s unequivocally me in this painting. Though I’m not an artist who’ll retrofit meaning to a self-portrait such as this, thinking I’ll look less pretentious but certainly looking more, it’s likely this portrait speaks to the many identities one person – i.e. me – can contain.
This artistic preoccupation with identity probably happened because I lost mine (around Brisbane so if you find it, please let me know). Until three years ago, the main pillars of my identity were: my work in building design, my friends, partner and my city. Then in a sequence of events so absurd it’s almost laughable now, a pillar faltered, and like Jenga blocks, the remaining pieces fell with it.
What was left-over from this exodus was my parents’ house in the Mary Valley and my flailing mental health. This did not an identity make. Feeling hopeless and, truthfully, a little sorry for myself, I decided to indulge the weakest parts of my disposition. I’m an emotional sponge. And my ability to absorb feelings and express my soggy mess has always been my worst, yet most promising attribute. So with that and my new rural locale in mind, I did the most predictably artist thing: disappeared into the valley, and painted.
My studio started in the corner of a storage area with a window looking to the Blackall Ranges. While I worked, I’d receive visits from wallabies, fireflies and goannas (a weird day), and listen to the hum of a nearby creek. The whimsy of it all made it difficult to resent my new circumstances; those I couldn’t have conceived just one year prior. These new circumstances were also, shock, quite conducive to creativity.
Painting is so necessary to me that I wouldn’t have minded if my artistic enterprise came to naught. But I would say that, because it didn’t. Within a short while, I was surprised to sell most of my paintings, be commissioned interstate and welcomed by my local, Stevens Street Gallery. This change in fortune has given me immense satisfaction, though perhaps none so deep as getting to tend to the craft every day.
In an identity crisis, the reflex might be to make a dramatic change and force a new one onto yourself. This works some of the time. The less sexy option is to sort through the puzzle of your life and replace the pieces, one by one (forgive the board game metaphors – it’s a rich area). Though I’m still working through these pieces, the identity I’m forming now is my most honest. I would’ve been fine in the old one, but in this emerging self, a self that centres art and emotional sponginess, there’s an opportunity to create something much, much more interesting.
