Painter's life.

I went to art school from high school, so I lived with artists around me all the time.

They always seemed so emotional and so preoccupied with their own drama that when I was a teenager I thought, I looked at them and made up my mind to be a less emotional painter when I grew up.

But now I think that all the adults around me dared to create drama and wanted their lives to have meaning.

It's often said that the more unhappy an artist is, the better he/she can paint.

Almost all the painters around me are single and lonely.

Conversely, only single and lonely people have succeeded as painters.

My paintings want to express emotions so always in the final stages of the painting I push my psyche quite a bit. In other words, I thought I was building myself up by creating artificial misery.

I've always painted alone, so I thought I'd have better control over my emotions and my physical body.

Recently, I have come to think that the life of a painter itself cannot last long with such temporary emotional control.

As I wrote in a previous blog, it is said that the peak of a Japanese painter's life is at the age of 65.

They say that when you reach the age of 65, you can use all the techniques you have learnt in your paintings.

I have recently been wondering whether this method of creating temporary misery and drama will really work until the age of 65.

My own analysis of the oft-repeated saying of painters that misfortune makes good paintings is

I think that people can maximise their concentration when they have nothing else to do but face the painting.

Do you want to create a good painting life or do you want to create a good life and paint to go with it?