Loribelle Spirovski

I was thinking about myself as a painter.

And I truly didn't call myself an artist until about last year.

Because I liked painter.

Painter was like a trade.

You know, painter was a skill.

Painter was an act.

Whereas artist, I sort of elevated it as almost like you're a king.

Yeah.

It definitely coincided with finishing the book because I know that the book is also an artwork.

That's why I call it a portrait in words because I approached it very much as a visual artist, as a painter, someone who works with pigment, turning something abstract into something recognisable.

So when I realized that I could be an artist in many different ways, not just with painting, I started to expand that definition.

And when I really, truly stopped painting, actually stopped painting for, how long did I go for?

At the longest, four months.

Not a single painting in four months.

I mean, the depression that came with it was severe.

Like, I genuinely had to be medicated at that point.

And that helped immensely because at that point I had just taken myself as far as I could on my own and I'd only just started seeing a therapist.

I actually started seeing a therapist the same day that I started my medication.

And...

Life is completely different now.