Writing Paintings and Reading

Lepopisana is wordplay in Slovenian. It can be interpreted as beautifully colourful (lepo = beautiful; pisana = colourful in feminine form). However, colourful isn't exactly my state of mind, since all a person has to do is take a look at my paintings to discover they are pretty much monochromatic. So, another interpretation reads beautifully written, as "pisana" can also mean written. This is more like me. I started my artistic expression as a calligrapher and later evolved into a painter with letters as main subject matter. My paintings are results of a long thought process which is usually written down in a sort of a journal or a sketchbook (otherwise it disappears into deep folds of oblivion). A friend called my notebook Imaginarium. I don't draw much in my sketchbook as many people would expect from an artist working on a new idea. Instead I write, I describe ideas and later I read what I have written and try to imagine how a living thing would look like. I once said I wrote paintings and somebody asked if I was aware it could easily be the other way around, that I draw letters. It could, but it isn't, drawing letters doesn't feel like a real thing for me, writing paintings does.  

The other side of writing is reading. I love books and have a deep respect for them. When I was little, I would do anything to be left alone to read. It's all I wanted. I would read almost anything, depending on the state of mind I was in at the time. School reading was OK, but Agatha Christie was the one who really opened the world of books for me. And then other authors, books, heroes, themes and worlds followed. I enjoy reading other people's book reviews. It was only last year I thought about writing my own. Because of writing about books I read them differently, as if I was reading a book more than once at the same time. And I started thinking with a pen in hand. The future looks good. 

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Lepopisana je besedna igra. Ime bi lahko pomenilo lepo pisana, vendar barvitost ni ravno moje stanje duha. Ljudje, ki so že videli moje slike, so ugotovili, da sem bolj ko ne monokromatska. Druga razlaga Lepopisane je lepo pisana, pri čemer pisana pomeni napisana. To je že bolje. Svoj umetniški izraz sem sprva našla v kaligrafiji, kasneje pa sem ugotovila, da sem bolj kot kalgrafinja pravzaprav slikarka. Črke so ostale moj motiv in predmet razmišljanja. Moje slike so rezultat miselnega procesa, ki ga po navadi zapišem v neke vrste skicirko, zvezek (namenoma nočem uporabiti besede dnevnik, saj so moji zvezki vse prej kot to, ne glede na to, da imajo zapisi datume) ali kar koli preprečuje, da bi razmišljanja potonila v praznino pozabe. Prijatelj mojemu zvezku pravi Imaginarij. V skicirke bolj malo rišem, čeprav večina ljudi ravno to pričakuje od umetnika, ki razvija idejo. Namesto risanja pišem, opisujem ideje, kasneje pa prebiram kar sem napisala in si skušam predstavljati kaj bi iz tega nastalo. Nekoč sem rekla, da pišem slike. Eden od mojih profesorjev me je vprašal, če se zavedam, da je lahko pot tudi obratna, da rišem črke. Lahko je, ampak ni. Risanje črk nima enako oprijemljivega občutka kot ga ima pisanje slik.

Druga stran pisanja je branje. Obožujem knjige in jih globoko spoštujem. Ko sem bila majhna, bi naredila kar koli, da bi me ljudje pustili pri miru, da sem lahko brala. Brala sem zelo različne stvari, odvisno od feelinga. Šolsko branje je bilo OK, vendar je bila takrat Agatha Christie tista, ki mi je odprla vrata v svet resničnega branja. Potem so prišli še drugi avtorji, knjige, junaki, teme in svetovi. Rada berem ocene knjig, ki jih ljudje pišejo, vendar mi nikoli ni prišlo na misel, da bi napisala svojo. Do lani. Od kar pišem o knjigah, se mi zdi, da drugače berem, kot da bi hkrati brala večkrat. Tako kot pri slikanju, tudi tu razmišljam s svinčnikom v roki.