Fuck it !

 By : Prof. Dr. Sabahudin Hadžialić, Doctor Honoris Causa

Does the world understand what it means to critically observe reality eo ipso, to cultivate media literacy?

Politicians across the Balkans, though their counterparts elsewhere are hardly exempt, regard art as a “necessary evil”. Ignorance is no longer merely power; it has become a way of life. And to live in ignorance is to stand in the antechamber of agitation, which inevitably gives way to manipulation. A manipulation they have every reason to perpetuate, having spent the past thirty-five years ruthlessly plundering their own populations. Authoritarian chauvenists, operating according to the amoral code of former communists, stop at nothing, adhering to that infamous maxim: “The worse, the better.” For them, naturally.

We must first educate the educators if we are to educate their voters. And who is better placed to undertake this task than artists, who for centuries have put their own lives on the line, confronting power head-on? The price has often been painful, but their sacrifices have established the foundations upon which we can now demand that artists across the Balkans take up this responsibility themselves.

Through their position, through the very essence of their being, artists must cry out, implore and insist that people learn to observe reality critically. For their own good. Only then can we begin to work for one another, rather than against one another.

The process begins with artists. If we start today, we may begin to see the fruits of media literacy in thirty years' time, for that is the timescale over which the social reflection of a particular era and place takes shape.

Yes, perhaps we must leave it to the artists arriving in London to begin this work with FUCK IT! How far they will get depends on more than the artists themselves. It depends far more on those of us who follow.

After all, even the longest journey begins with a single step.

The Question of Survival

 

By Suncica Perisin Tomljanovic 

Recently, at an exhibition that opened in Split, an Italian representative of the Government of the Lazio Region, spoke about the important purpose and value of artists: “They ask questions, provoke thought and instigate change” the lady expressed the reasons why art and artists are important to society . 

Fortunately, given the broader circumstances, she spoke in her native Italian, a language most of the present Croatian audience did not understand. Perhaps that was just as well. The local politicians standing in a semicircle around her demonstrate views almost entirely opposed to her own and were not necessarily in favour of this kind of art. They applauded out of courtesy, understanding possibly none of what she had said. 

Those in the public who spoke Italian well enough, and had spent time in Italy, agreed with her and applauded because, coming from a different cultural environment, they recognised her argument as self-evident. 

As someone who speaks both languages, has lived in both countries and has experienced what it means to be an artist in each society, I found the absurdity of the situation amusing: people with opposing views politely applauding a speech in defence of precisely the kind of artistic value they themselves seemed unable to recognise.

Every summer, sophisticated art collectors from around the world sail the Adriatic. I know this because I earn my living painting live portraits for people aboard their yachts. One question collectors frequently ask me is: Why can we find no Croatian art in the coastal towns we visit?

It is an interesting question, given that Split, Dubrovnik, Korčula and other coastal towns are full of galleries selling what is presented as art. The problem is not the absence of art from the marketplace, but the kind of art being sold and, ultimately, who has the authority to decide what art is.

The galleries are filled with figurative, literal depictions: fishing boats at sea, lavender fields and olive trees. I once watched an artist produce ten canvases depicting, the same generic olive tree. Whether or not these artists possess technical skill, the purpose of this work is not to ask questions, investigate ideas or contribute to cultural discourse. The purpose of this kind of art work - is survival.

Making money takes precedence over everything else. Surprisingly, or perhaps not, these paintings sell. Croatia has no deeply established culture of collecting contemporary art, but it does have a culture of giving paintings as gifts: to thank doctors, return favours or celebrate weddings. The gift is often a painting of a boat or an olive tree, and everyone is satisfied.

This kind of art suits politicians: highly realistic, with little or no consideration given to titles, meaning or anything beyond the image itself. The artists who produce it can earn money and survive within this economy. Their work fulfils predetermined expectations, reinforces a familiar image of the coast and asks nothing of the viewer beyond recognising what they already know.

There is another economy catering to tourists, in which amateur artists sell photocopied drawings that infringe the copyright of the original artists, realistic depictions of towns and watercolours coloured to simulate drawing skill. This market reinforces the belief among its participants that what they produce has value, while encouraging a sense of superiority over artists whose original work does not sell with comparable regularity.

Yet the collectors who ask me where Croatian art is are not looking for generic paintings of boats. They are knowledgeable collectors with carefully developed collections, looking for thought, invention and ideas. They are searching for the kind of work that is almost impossible to find during the few hours they spend ashore exploring the coast. Instead, they encounter shops filled with mass-produced Chinese souvenirs and the same monotonous lavender pasted over canvass in every town.

International collectors visiting Croatia often leave convinced that there are no artists here.

In a society whose people have survived three wars in a century, whose country has changed in both its political identity and geographical shape—from kingdom to multinational communist state to smaller capitalist nation—survival is deeply ingrained. State-aprooved atheism has been replaced by an enthusiastic embrace of religion as a national identity, a distinction that emerged during the war as a means of separating one’s own people from their neighbours. Families have endured genocide, as those who survied awful trauma - raise children, the instinct to survive is passed down through generations, becoming a value capable of eclipsing almost everything else.

People have experienced ruptures in continuity and prolonged uncertainty, and many have become intolerant of further change. Sameness begins to function as an identity in its own right. There is an established idea of what is “normal”, in Split and anything outside its boundaries comes under pressure to conform, among adults and children alike. Difference is not tolerated.

In such a society, art that asks questions can become tiresome, dangerous and unsettling. Sometimes it is not recognised as art.

Living in Split and Dalmatia since 2013 I have encountered a degree of ridicule directed at artists that I have not experienced elsewhere. When people want to portray someone as having mental health issues, for example, they may call them an artist, using the word as an insult. Someone regarded as unsuccessful, lazy or unwilling to work may also call themselves an artist. The word ARTIST becomes a convenient means of belittling anyone whose activity falls outside the accepted definition of productive labour.

Within this economy of survival, artists face the same question almost daily, posed by people from every social stratum as though it were an unavoidable cultural obligation: Can you make a living from your art?

The problem arises when it becomes the principal measure by which an artist and their work are judged.The question is no longer what the artist does, investigates or challenges, nor what they might contribute to the culture around them. The question is whether they can financially survive by doing it.

Art is reduced to a source of income, and the artist must justify their existence through economic productivity. Anything without immediate practical value becomes difficult to defend. In the eyes of the person asking, the artist is effectively invalidated before their work has even been considered. This is a situation one artist may encounter for the thousandth time in a single year, repeated across society, one person at a time, through the supposedly “innocent question”.

It becomes a comic, Sisyphean loop: the same question repeated endlessly, with no possibility of moving forward because the answer remains unchanged. The artist loses confidence and self-respect, subjected to continual humiliation instead of having their work recognised. Rarely does anyone ask what they think, what they are questioning or what they have to contribute. Their work becomes invisible and useless before it has even been given the opportunity to be considered.

Croatia's academies of fine arts graduate only a small number of formally trained artists each year —  around eight students annually in each individual fine-art discipline — while the opportunities available after graduation remain limited. Commercial galleries independently representing artists whose work departs from familiar and accepted artistic forms are rare in the country and absent from most towns.

Many graduates end up working in tourism or other industries rather than developing their own artistic practices. For those who manage to secure financial stability through education, obtaining a teaching position can involve aligning oneself with the dominant political party, restricting the employee's freedom of expression, while providing financial security that is unavailable to artists without such protection. That security can also nurture a sense of superiority over those who remain economically precarious. Structurally scarcity and competition breeds rivalry among artists themselves -which affects the progress of the scene . 

Outside education, opportunities for support are limited. Public funding is often distributed through long application processes in which projects may be selected according to whether they align with what the local political establishment considers acceptable or by secular artists circles that rarely make space for outsiders. Much work by many artists- remain unpublished, unexhibited or unsupported.

Artists who question the existing order, seem to be most susceptible to being left without money for production and life . They work in other industries: washing dishes in restaurants, delivering pizzas, selling shower drains, devising workshops or working in telephone sales. These are the actual jobs of artists in Split's art community.

The same society that ridicules these artists and their work can leave even those who have spent their lives contributing to the country's culture without the means to live with dignity. Artists, such as Zlatan Dumanić, whose work has been presented at the Venice Biennalehave nevertheless experienced such financial precarity that they resorted to collecting cigarette butts from the street to smoke in a museum, unable to afford even a coffee in their last days on earth. This illustrates the disparity between an artist’s recognised cultural contribution and the material conditions available to sustain their practice. Ironically - Dumanić received a retrospective exhibition only after his death, when remuneration for his work could no longer benefit him.

In this way, artists are erased from society: their value is diminished, they remain invisible and unsupported whenever their work fails to fit the image the establishment wishes to project. The same fishing boats that fill tourist galleries continue to determine what is bought, exhibited and accepted.

History offers disturbing examples of what happens when art is judged according to a predetermined idea of its purpose and value. Hitler himself painted conventional watercolours and depictions of buildings and landmarks. After coming to power, the Nazi regime promoted an officially sanctioned aesthetic based on classical realism and nationalist imagery. Modernist and avant-garde movements were attacked and suppressed under the label of “degenerate art”. The regime rejected art that challenged political authority, exposed social realities or departed from its prescribed aesthetic, suppressing artistic experimentation and critical expression in favour of work that supported its nationalist and racial ideology.

This comparison addresses a fundamental question: who determines what art is permitted to be, what it is expected to represent, and whether its value depends on serving an already established idea of normality. The historical example demonstrates the consequences of turning a preferred aesthetic into an instrument of exclusion: artistic value becomes inseparable from conformity, while anything outside the prescribed image is denied legitimacy.

Art does not have to be politically oppositional to be valuable, nor must every work provoke or unsettle. But a society that recognises art only when it conforms to familiar expectations deprives itself of the possibility of encountering something it has not yet learned to recognise. In doing so, it limits not only the artist but also the cultural experience available to the public.

The artists exist. The work exists. The question is whether the cultural environment allows that work to become visible, supports artistic independence and recognises value beyond what is familiar, commercially acceptable or politically sanctioned.  The established conditions make certain kinds of art invisible in the very towns where artists live and work. 

This produces a disturbing loop: little time remains for making work once income must be earned elsewhere; resources for materials are limited; and an endless “can you make a living from it” discourse never reaches the work itself.

Even when an artist gains access to the international art world, where their work can be seen, considered and critically analysed, the conditions in which it was produced may differ fundamentally from those of their international contemporaries. The artist may bring the same intellectual rigour, artistic vision and capacity to contribute, yet years of constraint leave their mark on both the artistic practice and the materiality of the work. 

The question is not simply whether the work can be presented on equal terms internationally, but whether it can be assessed fairly without acknowledging the unequal conditions under which it was produced?

This is the context from which FUCK IT!emerges.

On 12 and 13 October, during Frieze Week, three artists from Split,  Dino Grčić, Petar Grimani and Sunčica Perišin Tomljanović, will take their work into the streets of London, outside the conventional channels of the art world, through live art performances in the open air.

FUCK IT is less a title than a decision: to make a move when the existing mechanisms for movement simply do not exist. 

It is the first project by #LivingCroatianArtists #TheLCAs, an artist-led experiment in creating the very structures of support that are missing. A conceptual ecosystem of contemporary artists who become a structure of support and visibility to each other. Artists become the institution they need to move forward out of the local deadlock . 

What happens when waiting for infrastructure stops? A leap of faith.  FUCK IT.

Riding Small World & Dinner with Sunci, project

The priority of my little artist stipend was the tube pass and a phone, which is why I ate only pasta at home—electricity could not fit into my stipend, and it was the last on the list of priorities. Those Notting Hill houses had this electricity top-up system—you topped electricity up like a phone. I had let mine run out. In fact, I would plug in my electricity in the hallway, in the socket meant for hoovering the staircase.

And it was at this time of humble living, in between the realms of India Jane’s shop, glamorous art events, brunches and dinners Marina and Tarrek’s place, and very little time in my own dark place, that I suddenly had an idea.

I believe we "land ideas" or "channel ideas"—ideas just come to you. And all you need to do is realize them or not—and if you don’t do it, they fly away, and somehow it’s never the right time for it ever again. Usually the idea requires courage , and jumping and risking and investing energy and money, but if you do it- it rewards you. Sometime its too scary to jump though.

The incredible, genius idea—that landed to the very broke Sunci, without a pound in her pocket until the end-of-month paycheck— was almost biblical.

My concept was to paint portraits of artists and art scene people over dinner that I would make and invite them to.

Though Marina pointed out how slim and beautiful I looked, I felt always hungry that summer. So, to make dinner and paint others at dessert was my plan.

And the people who wanted to have this experience with me but were not in any way involved with art—they would pay for the experience and keep their portrait, and in this way, they would fund the project and the growing collection of the art scene people’s portraits -that I planned to exhibit some day.

It sounds complicated—but it was brilliant.

I suddenly had a project to offer to whomever I felt like. To people we met at the fancy art parties, I offered to be my muses for the project—be it art journalists, artists, architects, gallerists. To people who had money and loved art, I offered to be patrons for the project—London bankers.

I had become a member of the then-private social group, Small World. To enter this community, you had to be invited. It was a kind of Facebook, limited to jet-setters & socialites. It still exists. Maybe there was something about being in a house with no electricity that sped up my genius or made the angels feel sorry for me and send me the concept.

For while in Rome in the previous two years, I had sustained myself from art and got used to the fact that I could. In London, I was brand new in terms of collectors. No one knew me. I had to get myself on the map quickly so that I could live for my work. And this project did just that.

The main sources for the muses I painted were face-to-face encounters at the art events and Small World. Very quickly, the word got out about my project among the London City bankers. Many wanted to have this experience. They had a bet on who would succeed in seducing me—none of them did.

I was right in the middle of a completely bodyless, romantic email correspondence with an artist in Berlin that kept me infatuated and freed my body and time to work and dedicate myself fully to being a born-again Londoner.

Very soon, "Dinner with Sunci" took off. I was painting sometimes two people a day. I had money to move house and moved to the Barbican with three fun flatmates, where "Dinner with Sunci" blossomed and was cooked for many nights, feeding everyone in the flat. The dinners became social events at times.

Soon, people on the London art scene knew me—I was painting so many of them—and the art collectors knew me—enough to make it possible to leave the shop job before the month was up.

I was being invited to Ibiza, Paris, and Istanbul, and I no longer cared about India Jane—for I had money and was back to being independent with ART.

The space in Portman Square I had wanted to book—and trusted in magic that somehow I would—was paid for by a London gallerist who just wanted to help me out and sponsor the project after I painted her over lunch.

Andy Warhol & Mick Jagger

It was a dreary summer in London in terms of weather. Rain, rain, rain. The kind of weather that makes one desire the diet of fatty sausages and mash—but I was too poor.

All I ate those days was pasta Aglio & Olio—the basic Roman recipe, a staple of the working-class Roman, consisting of plain pasta with fried garlic in olive oil with pepper—my staple too for a whole month, except when Marina took me out.

In this particular reincarnation of the artist, my friends—who at that point were curator Marina, artist Tatiana & architect Guillermo—decided to evacuate me out of Croatia as an emergency.

I had just quit working for the Slovenian yacht-building industry, spent my entire last wages in Venice for the Biennale opening, gave some to my family, on lodging, food, high heels for the openings—and the trip via ship and train to Croatia.

My stepfather died at the end of winter. My mother was in a terrible state, grieving in the most volatile way and spewing it all over me and my brothers. It was very toxic, to live with her unbearable. The moment she saw me back in Croatia—on her own initiative—she secured me a job: to be the cleaner for apartments on the island of Hvar.

Now, to explain something—I have a very sharp eye for aesthetics; however, I am the messiest whirlwind of a human and tend to create mess so fast, I am the one that has always needed a cleaner. Tatiana was with me when this job was offered to me by my mother.

Tatiana, on witnessing this in secret, immediately started the "Extract Sunci" mission, which my beloved London friends financed together. They had always believed in me as an artist—even when I doubted it. Tati gave me the choice: fly out tomorrow, risk it as an artist again in London this summer, or stay in beautiful seaside Croatia and become a cleaner.

I chose art. Pissed mother off again, for she likes me being nearby. Marina gave me a flat to use in her own Notting Hill neighborhood and a small weekly allowance for the month—until I found my bearings. The idea was I get a job—fast. And the way Marina presented this to me was that she was investing in me—the artist and my art.

I spent a day working at the Yotam Ottolenghi restaurant—and lost the job the same day for explaining to a customer and my manager, in front of the customer, that "Pecorino was a sheep's cheese because, in Italian, 'pecora' is a sheep"—not goat cheese, as the manager had said.

The third job was at India Jane—a shop full of beautiful lamps, pillows, glass, both beautiful or kitsch, and fake antique furniture from India and China. My days were spent dusting shelves and rearranging glasses, fluffing cushions, and by the time the end of the workday came, Marina and Tarrek had a society event planned out for us—or a few. Be it gate-crashing Sotheby’s auction exhibitions through daredevil acting at the door—or any kind of art exhibition openings anywhere across London.

One day, we ended up at an exhibition in a beautiful decadent period building on Portman Square. A Russian artist was showing her photographs. At the exhibition, we somehow got invited to the afterparty.

Arriving in a beautiful house, we soon learned that the house belonged to the manager of the Rolling Stones.

The house was full of art and white rugs. In this house, red wine was not allowed because of the white rugs—to my annoyance. And what kind of rock and roll is that? But it was the wife of this man who hosted us to start.

When we entered the living room, there were only a few people invited—Marina, Tarrek, myself, and perhaps four or five others. On the walls of the living room hung original Andy Warhol prints.

Not only were they original Andy Warhols, but the very specific one—a light blue and black portrait of Mick Jagger—that I had discovered in Ms. Judi’s art book, and that inspired me to paint portraits of beautiful boys, because through that work I understood portraits can be sexy—not just Tudor-like.

I realized that this must be a sign! The kind of signs I fish about as an omen. This was a good omen—that I translated as meaning the month freezing in the gray city full of drizzle was the right universal choice for me. I was so happy.

And then a man walked into the living room and sat under that very portrait of Mick Jagger.

It was Mick Jagger himself.

Mick Jagger told me that Portman Place was the place where the orgies were held. We were chatting quietly and eating chocolate cake by the dessert table. All the other guests at this little party clearly considered it would be condescending if they actually shared the excitement of meeting Mick Jagger, so they were playing it cool and aloof—all eyes from their corners following the dialogue between me and Mick.

I had none of that insecurity or snobbery to the point where I would ignore such an artist. I will always go up to an artist and say something,  I was not shy, and we got chatting.

Jagger told me all about the orgies at Portman Place, and it made me decide right then and there that, by Jove, I would have to do something there too. I loved the space.

The moment I departed into the next room, all the other people suddenly swamped Jagger—no more snobs. I left him to it.

The omen did foretell good tidings. Before the month at India Jane was up, I had a brilliant idea- and was back to living of my art. 

And the next day I went to Portman Place and met Frankie, who ran it. Frankie liked me, and he was Serbian—in London, this meant we were both Balkan, and it meant a discount. Frankie would rent Portman Place to me—for one day—for 1,000 quid. 

The third Buddhist Monk & painting a darling war criminal.

While I was a child, I spent four years living through a war. This war affected people in different ways, some less, some more.

To me, it meant that from the first rocket we saw in the sky over our city—not only had a war begun—but that my father, living in America, and who had long planned to get me, mother, and brother over to America so that we could share in his American dream, completely abandoned us.

My dad stopped calling, writing, and sending money, and it was war. I was living with my mother and baby brother in the tiny stone house , and one I most ever felt and thought of as home. It was an interesting time to stop supporting a woman with two of your children, and one a breast-suckling baby, and I’m not sure what kinds of self-preservation, selfishness, and fear made him. Maybe he was scared he, a musician, might be drafted into war if he could be traced? No idea.

From the house we lived in, overlooking the sea, you could see very well the red rockets being shot at from the "Yugoslav," or rather Serbian owned ships that were shooting at Split. They sort of looked like red broken lights in red bows, crisscrossing over the night sky. Seeing these lights put such an intense fear into my tiny little frame—I was petrified of actually being in the house and of us being alone. I felt profound panic, fear, and the need to be around other people.

The red light attack had a worse effect on my grandfather. My grandfather during one part of his life was the electronics director in the ship yard of Trogir. He had worked on building warship called Split for the than yugolav state and army. He was the one who oversaw the installation and design of electricity in this warship.  It was a war ship called Split that was used to bomb the city of Split. It was Split the ship, that was bombing Split form the sea. The only time ever- i saw my grandfather cry was when he told my mother this. 

The makeshift war shelter that my neighborhood came up with was the cellar of an old stone building, a once-aristocratic Lippeo mansion, now an apartment building, where the cellar served as storage space for a shop. The air of this space was so full of baking flour that, upon entering it the first night, I had a series of panic attacks because I thought I could not breathe inside. 

I eventually got used to the air within, or it was swept enough times by the panicking women, and this shelter, this one large room, became a kind of a makeshift home for many months and nights during the next years.

The neighbors brought over mattresses from their own beds and made makeshift benches along the wall, and upon these mattresses slept all the children of the neighborhood, all the old women, all the mothers, and some old men—as the healthy men, young and fathers, were soon drafted to war.

I remember when I found it hard to sleep as we listened to Kalashnikovs firing in the dark, our one window stuffed with sand, blocking all light, and to stop any bullets. The shelter was only ever lit by a small candle in the night, so as to not make lights, and the very glass was covered with brown packing tape in many layers. Most people would sleep, but I remember finding it impossible for many nights as I listened to the sounds from outside.

My mother had an idea at some point that we tie the dog we were looking after, the beautiful Lassie, and the black terrifying dog of the local drug dealer around the shelter, so they’d warn us if the enemy was nearing—but the dogs ended up untying and fighting in the night.

We knew all about the sirens. And hid when sirens were sounded. And left the shelter when they seemed to let us. We were in our little sea town, exposed to the enemy from the air, from the sea, and from the lands—the enemy air force—as Croats at the beginning of the war were without any airplanes, any tanks, and any weapons that the "Yugoslav" army, mostly commanded by Serbs, used to crush the attempt at independence by the countries wanting to leave the six-country Yugoslav union.

I kept hearing things at the back of our building where there was a toilet and a window, and I was scared, they just thought i was a kid over doing it-. One night a bunch of Croatian army soldiers came over to us. They told us that behind us, 10 meters behind us, in the park, in what was a tourist camp—Serbian soldiers were camping. The soldiers had made them depart. It probably is impossible for you to know what the enemy camping behind a building full of women and children might mean—unless you saw the news reports from that war, reporting on the instances where they made it into such buildings and after which no one was left alive.

The soldiers saved us. My mother fell in love with one of the soldiers, as did all the women. But by this time, my mother was clearly single, very beautiful, and suddenly the handsome soldier made my mom my second brother and engaged with her, but was not really around, was always on the front.

My aunt was a politician and buisness woman at the time, and she was in the negotiation with the Serb army to leave our region, though I don’t know the details. Not much was destroyed -as was in the north of Croatia. My aunt also got my mother a job working for the UN, who were sleeping in her hotel. And my mother in turn employed everyone who she knew needed a job—in the UN.

However, the British engineer that was my mother’s boss was completely besotted with her. Lurked and stalked, courted her in such a public way, that the soldier, eventually scared he would lose his son to this foreigner, kidnapped my brother from his nanny as my mother was at work and I at school. My 1.8-year-old baby, breastfeeding brother ended up somewhere in war-thick Bosnia, in the care of an unknown woman. My mother was out of her wits at this point for a couple of months, and then the brother of her fiancé stole the baby from the Bosnian woman and returned it to my mother, who was being driven around by her boss.

This made the soldier so mad, he hunted us. This was a soldier who in his warm war stories told me he had not eaten for 14 days and faced an enemy squadron alone. He banged at the door of my grandparents and told my grandmother he would slaughter me, my brother, my mother, and take his baby son back.

My grandparents had friends in the most northern part of Croatia, Stubice, in a village in the countryside where no one knew us. These good people took us into their house in the woods and hid us for the summer. In autumn, we moved to Zagreb, my mother cut off all my long hair so anyone looking for me would not recognize me.

There my mother married her boss from the UN, who was expelled from the United Nations forces for his illegitimate intervention with this soldier and Croatian army forces, and losing all his property to his ex-wife in Britain.

I can’t say I was happy. I can’t say I felt safe. I was groundless. All I had that I could control was drawing.

We moved to England. Eventually, I figured it out. Learned the language. I was not allowed to call or write to my friends in case the soldier found out where we lived, in case he came to look for us, we continued hiding. I was not allowed to visit—even when the war had ended. We did not return home when the war ended.

England became this period that turned into a life. We lived in one and then a second village. I fought my mother and stepfather to stay at the school I had by chance managed to accidentally make—King Edward VI—because we lived in a village that fell into its region, and once we moved to another, which had no bus to my school town, I fought to stay at my school by choosing to cycle on the bike—to school every day if needs, and it did need it—the many miles in whatever the English weather.

For a while, I also accompanied my younger brother—but he soon gave up the trouble and resigned to go to the school with the bus.Where fewer people went on to complete A-levels or university than the school I had, by chance, stuck with.

In the big art book in Ms. Judi's class, I once came across the performance Balkan Baroque by Marina Abramović.

The piece moved me deeply, for it seemed to express the feelings I could not describe about this war I had lived through. The artist was Serbian, though.

For me, as a small Croat, the world was so simple. We were Croat, the Serbs were our enemy, trying to kill us in our own backyard—we were Catholics, there was one God in the universe. Things started shifting in England, where I discovered so many other cultures that were nothing like the one I had come from. Where I eventually started to see there are many sides to everything, and the idea of one universal truth I had felt so strongly I had known—disappeared.

The fact I loved her work, the fact she was Serbian, was probably divine intervention, because I had to get beyond my developed prejudices to value the work. The work moved me profoundly. 

---

And I instantly felt intrigued and connected to this woman and her performances.

In England, in the environment I was growing up in—Lichfield and the village of Elford—I had no contact whatsoever with anyone from the Balkans or who spoke my language for years. In fact, Marina was the first Balkan person I had, in this way, had contact with—via her work. It was also the first art performance work I had ever discovered. It invited me into the language of art performance.

Part 2

"Shall I come to Belgrade this week?"

"My children are on the island with their father, I sold a painting and have money right now—I don’t always." I was talking to the writer-curator who had invited me to come exhibit in Belgrade having discovered my work trough the press.

She had other plans, but in the impulsive euphoria that takes one over when inspiration is at hand, she caught on to it. Changed her plans and told me to come over. She had invited me to do a solo exhibition in the heart of Belgrade a year ago, but it had never quite been the right time, as her health was the issue.

I had just returned from my first trip to London with my children, who were to leave and spend a week with their dad on the island. My boyfriend was on the sailing boat he worked on that summer. And I had invited over Florian Richter from the art group Glitin to stay in my sea castle house—because it was so bizarre and inspiring, it called for artists to live in it. More than anything, leaving my children to their dad like this always put into me a sense of terrifying vacuum I could not live with. I needed an adventure so the terrifying loneliness of having to be without my children by force wouldn’t crush me.

I was arranged. I met up with the fantastical, marvelous Florian and his wife, left them my keys to the house in the sea, and got onto a coach for Belgrade.

Some 12 hours later, I was in Serbia. It was my first time. I had no idea what to expect. I had no preconceptions. And I had long ago renounced the enmity I had felt as a threatened child some 30 years before. I was just curious to see and explore, as I am whenever I land in any new place. I bought the lady champagne on the way.

The curator kindly came to pick me up at the coach station, and we took a bus to her house. She told me all about the different buildings, parks, kinds of sculptures, embassies as we drove through Belgrade.

At home, I met her husband—both in their 60s, and both as kind and funny as could be.

I was fascinated by their banter, their exchange. This curator, devoutly loved by her husband, who seemed to cook and look after every need of hers in the most devoted way. His wife, who had seriously compromised health. She spoke with humor, drama, and both educated, delicious words and crude swear words all mixed into one effectful blend.

Their house gave me a sense of déjà vu. They had pretty much the same bathroom, with the same tiles as my grandmother’s. They had the same orange light shades as my grandmother. And the apartment was decorated with the furniture made in Yugoslavia, which my grandmother had—but it seemed everyone in the Balkans had the same. It appeared to me that across Yugoslavia, everyone had the same furniture—which was very strange for me.

Apart from this, their house was chock-a-block filled with books and art.

For the next three days, the curator lady and her husband treated me like a daughter. He cooked vegetarian recipes for me from the Yugoslav Army Cookbook—the only one he ever used—and they were delicious. She took me to see a historical museum so I would understand more about Serbia, so I would see how long ago Serbia had started- and its cultural wealth. So we started with the mammoth bones and cavemen.

We saw the fine art collections, which were beautiful and inspiring. She took me for cake in the most theatrical, charming restaurant—deliciously exotic. She told me all about everything she possibly could, walking around in her body, always needing insulin, and with a weak heart with several stents. I felt guilty for accepting the company not wishing to endanger her. I was never alone, and she paid for everything we did. I was blown over by the couple's hospitality.

The curator also took me to see a large fortress, a part of Belgrade that I found most architecturally impressive. Two churches stand on the top of this fortress hill, very important to the nation. One within it has a holy well that brings healing to the worshipers. The second church, to my fascination, had chandeliers entirely made out of full, unexploded bullets.

This artillery-filled church made me think about the fact that maybe Serbs are a warrior nation. I had never thought about it like this. 

As we were leaving the churches, I saw—standing upon the tight bridge we had to walk across—a Tibetan Buddhist monk dressed in orange! I smiled and considered him, too, a divine blessing. I asked the curator and him to take a photo with me—my third Buddhist monk encounter. I thought—this exhibition to come must be blessed.

Excitement filled me to be planning an exhibition in the town Marina Abramović was from, because I had, over the years, learned more about her art and life and was always inspired. The lady herself also knew Abramović, having interviewed her during her large solo show in the Contemporary Art Museum in Belgrade.

The  curator lady had opened a cultural center - in the middle of Belgrade—where she promoted Croatian culture. She had such influence and will that it was the President of Serbia she had convinced to give her the space and sponsor the idea.

The curator—like myself—was originally from the little seaside town of Kastela. She had such a fierce love for Kastela that it was this that made her invite me to exhibit in Belgrade. She adored Kastela and suffered for them profoundly. She had a little house in Kastela and would go there alone often, without her husband. Seeing she was so sick, I found this unusual.

We talked about my show, what I would paint, how I would bring over the works, what we would exhibit. She went so far as to introduce me to other gallerists and galleries in Belgrade to open doors for me, so once I exhibited there, I could do it in grand style—something she would launch in the press- a journalist as well as a writer and curator, she was well-respected in the social and diplomatic circles of Serbia.

On the last day of my stay, I insisted I paint the couple who were so incredibly kind to me and whom I came to love profoundly and instantly. I painted her reading her published poetry to me in her study, where I had been hosted. She turned out beautiful. I captured her strong and resilient, and through the poetry, I got to know her depths. I found out all about her heart operations, her vulnerability, and her passion.

Second, I painted her husband. He kept mentioning how he missed the sea, and this intrigued me, as they had a house near the sea. But then, this so-far harmless-looking man suddenly said, "I can't go—I can't leave the country, I can't cross the border." I was still confused. I didn't get the problem—the man was healthy. I asked the general questions that I always do about life.

"How did you two meet?"
"At a dance in Croatia, fell in love, and had the daughters."
"What was your job before retirement?"
"Oh, I was in the navy, in the engine."

And I don’t remember the actual words, but he then conveyed to me that he was in the Yugoslav army ship called Split, the one that had bombed the city of Split. He was running its engine at the time.

I had no idea what I was going to stumble upon when I started painting him, and I certainly did not expect this in the least. I suddenly realized that he must be on a list as a war criminal—and that's why he could not leave the country. My heart started beating, I started to get all hot, but this man here had been the kindest, nicest man towards me in the last few days. So I took in a breath, dealt with my triggers, and chose in that moment to forgive  all, and hear it.

"Those deserting the army were shot," he explained.
"And then my wife had to leave Split. She was living in Split, because she and our children were suddenly in danger—because I was in the army. They were in danger in Split."

I had pieced the story together from painting them. She, a Croat, married to a Serbian naval engine commander, fled Split and was afraid to return to Croatia for years. On the other hand, in Belgrade, she had been treated well from the start and was given very comfortable housing by the state to accommodate her large family and her husband's army seniority.

I carried on painting. I remembered my grandfather. He was the one who built this ship, called Split, that bombed Split. Here was the man operating the Split ship—during the bombing of Split. That I saw for a few moments from Kastela as a child. And she, a Croat, had to flee the same city of Split, with her children, to be safe from Croats.

It was a little too much for me. 

But I carried on painting. I was here for peace. To make art. To share peace, to share friendship. And perhaps, due to Instagram, and media, and the people who follow me locally—I can inspire a new chapter for those who have not been able to get past the war of their youth.

We also got on to the subject of history. This was the most potentially volatile. The lovely old gentleman heard, listened, and then started telling me about a picture of history that was alien to me. About the stupidity and unreasonableness of these little parts of the country wanting to split up from the large. I understood that he seemed to think everything was a large Serbia. Even Croatia. He did not see it as being a separate nation. He did not take into account " to me obvious" "entire history"—which I had studied in Croatia  having been a tourist guide, and in England while growing up. My body started getting hot as I felt the only way to get out of this conversation as friends was to stop it. So I changed the course of the conversation and got away from the scary disinformation/propaganda/ideals territory that started these kinds of wars in the first place and justified them to people's logic. 

I had no idea where we would get to. It became clear to me how powerful propaganda is, and that history is different depending on where you learn it.  I swung the subject elsewhere.

I wanted to keep my experience of this man—so kind to me—an experience of him and feel that we both stood as different chess pieces on the chessboard of history, in the larger picture, out of the control of our own hands. We all have to do the best we can in our circumstances. We all have to keep our families safe. We all believe in something. And sometimes, when our beliefs are so different, it's better to stop talking.

I gave the paintings to the couple, hugged my warm hosts, grateful for their sincere warmth. The old man accompanied me all the way to my coach back to Croatia, kind and attentive to the end. He then went for his long walk around the river—which reminds him of the Adriatic Sea he misses so much and will not see again in this life.

A huge red round sun spread over the hills as I left Belgrade and sent a message to the curator from the bus.  I tried to contextualize what I had experienced and share the coincidence of my being the artist in their house and the connections to this ship Split. She got very upset. She said it was a Russian-made boat, not the one made by my grandfather. She defended her husband. Even though what I tried to convey was the realization of it, the synchronicity, and the step that follows—humanness, peace, the reason I would do this show in the first place. Art as a form of friendship and love to share between these countries that were "brothers" but no longer are. She said by sending my observations-that I shut the door with my ass.

My conclusion, though, was respect. I connected all the heart trouble this woman had with the drama she had lived through. She had been in the position of having to choose between her husband and her country, with little children to take care of. She had lived through a lot, and I respected her. I thought it was the pain and the drama that eventually must have inspired her to create this cultural center, where she was working on reconnecting the of two countries and cultures trough art.

Part 3

My ex-husband announced that he had a girlfriend who was going to move into his and our children's home in a couple of weeks. They had met last summer. The children had never before met the woman. I was scared by this—the children not even being introduced and the woman moving in. Aware of his superficiality, I was scared of what values the woman would have. He told me she was from Macedonia.

When the girlfriend moved in with the children, my kids told me that she was from Belgrade. I met the woman—and she was Serbian. She seemed kind. The children liked her, thank God. I told the curator about the woman being from Belgrade and how lucky it was that I had come to Serbia and was so nicely treated by them- so that I would be inspired to be kind to her.

The curator knew the girl precisely. The girlfriend of my ex-husband, moving in with my kids, was a friend of her daughter’s who had practically grown up in the curator's house. She had only the best recommendations and reassurances of the quality of the woman. It made me feel happy—another mad synchronicity! It must be fate.

Part 4

It was summer. My ex-husband came to pick up my kids with his girlfriend in the car. He was smoking a cigarette. The kids got in, and his girlfriend, making a middle finger  at me, in front of my two children, pretended to be touching her hair -with the middle finger—aimed at me .

She  stared into my eyes, and called out of the car to me, "Come inside, let's lie to one another." 

A concept for a painting  emerged out this encounter.

The Iranian artist I was hosting in my house for the Kastela art residency said to me when I described it—"It was not synchronicity and coincidence that those two met last summer. They met on line, didn’t they? The curator and she knew all about you and all about him before those two met, didn’t they?" That never would have crossed my mind.

In fact, synchronicity or not—this girl friend- removed the remnants of my ex from my life thoroughly, like a good bleach. And I am thankful to her for it. Also, from what the children tell me, she is kinder and than the paternal grandmother towards them, who had been helping him with the children before she arrived. So for that, too, I am thankful. Im also thankful to have final got to know the ex better for what he truly is since her arrival, as all the many masks came off. I have learnt the most about Balkan ways and expectations and values right out of that marriage, that because of the nurture in Brittan- as well as live I, could observe as separate to me. 

I feel qualified to make the most bombastic exhibition about the Balkans ever done. 

Full of the bizarre and the beautiful ,the crass, material and the spiritual, savage and dramatic and poetic. 

Part 5

Ps. The exhibition in Belgrade never happened.

Part 6. 

A London one unfolds . 

London, The Monuments exhibiiton

As I had somehow galloped into an artist's life, from the first show in Rome, I had sort of felt less excited about London. After all those years in the city, exploring it in all sorts of ways, I was now loving my Italian immersion.

But I had a solo show in London!

The solo show was generously housed at the Embassy of Croatia Gallery, by the curator, art historian, and Councillor of Culture, Flora Turner, whom I had, out of affection, adopted as an aunt. A wonderful, intellectual lady who kept an eye on me of her own accord in the years I studied in London.

Having been present at many exhibitions opened at the gallery as a student assistant, socialite, wine pourer, and a sort of young mascot in the gallery—well known to the diplomats whom I would visit from time to time—having an exhibition in the embassy sort of felt like having an exhibition in my own house. I was that at home in the embassy building.

When I had arrived at the embassy cellars, where I had stored my St. Martins artwork to choose the work to exhibit, I had assumed it would be all quite simple, as I did not have all that many works at St. Martins, just a few large canvases. But I was guided to a cellar full of boxed-up artworks, many sculptures, and told, "That is all yours!"

"Impossible—this is not all mine," I replied.

"Oh, but it is. We were surprised when the lorry came and emptied all this stuff out."

For an instant, I reeled back into my memory to figure out what had happened! Raffaela had asked me if I could have some artwork stored at the embassy gallery from an exhibition she had curated in London—just for a short while. "Some works," she said. I asked, and the ambassador permitted me to store it—not expecting this quantity. But then, neither did I.

The ginormous cellars of the Croatian Embassy were very full, and a huge part of them was filled with what I had apparently sent over as my St. Martins artwork—a lorry full.

Right. I now understood what the diplomat meant when they inquired when I would move my stuff. I had clearly saved Raffa's ass with this storage, and the ambassador, though, assumed it was mine. And I had no idea it was so enormous. I didn't even do sculpture!

I dug about and found my little corner of paintings. We set them up pretty quickly. I did not want to exhibit just the St. Martins stuff—now that I had just painted the new series of portraits of Marco Castillo, which were a whole new style, full of drama and energy. I wanted to show those. We filled the gallery walls with portraits.

The exhibition opened. I remember some of my friends turned up and surprised me. The diplomats. Mother trained over from Eflord . It was a full house. 

The Embassy of Croatia cultured and raised me in a way. I was invited to some event once as a student, and from then on, I used to go to events held there and assist. I met many interesting scientists, artists, and politicians and started to train my hobnobbing sport—the talking to anyone that can be so terrifying before you dive in. But I became so good with practice, I was the one who would mingle about and make everyone feel connected and connect them among themselves—people I had just met.

The very elegant lady who was the economics diplomat, whom I had long admired for her style, Daria bought the painting of Ed Spurr for her son, Gaj. I loved that a mother would do that for her child.

It all felt so homely. When you are living what you are called to , in my case exhibitions, after painting, whilst there is always adrenaline- it feels so homey, there is an ease to it, the being at the right place at tthe right place at the right time, doing the true work.

That night, seeing it was my birthday around the date, Laurent, my French banker friend, invited us all to the Mandarin Hotel for champagne on Hyde Park and then to Buji's, the club in South Kensington. There, Prince Harry was hanging out with his friends. I think I met the British musician Craig David. I also met the Croatian fortune Konzum empire owner's son, Ivan—we were both just surprised to be Croatian and there. I guess Buji's was the place to be in London in 2006. It seemed being an artist attracted glamour.

Raffa bought me a birthday ticket to Miami Basel on impulse. But just as I made it to the plane, feeling like life was all jet-set, the reality of my Croatian passport hit—I wasn’t making the flight at all, since Croatians needed visas for America then.

 Instead, I sat on a train to my misty Staffordshire village. The taxi dropped me off to a glum stepfather who, through a scowl, without public to see it was honest and said, "What are you here for?" My mother and brothers, who would have remembered it was my birthday, had I met them in the house would have given me a more cheerful welcome to the rural family home. I had to wait for that warmth  for some hours, but luckily the cat Miof,  wanted me there. The moment my mother got back- she got me involved with a holiday job at the  Whittington farm she worked on! No special artist treatment there. Farms always need a hand, selling pie and lemon curd- and no one actually figured out or took seriously the fact that I was already actually living off my own art. 

Bumping into the second Buddhist monk and painting Achille Bonito Oliva

I was in Rome again; it was the autumn of 2019. I was wearing a Victoria Grant hat—sleek, black, extravagant, and simple. A kind of super-hat, chosen specially for the aesthetically conscious Italians. 

The Roman ladies were stopping me in the street to tell me how elegant it was, and as I spread the word about the enchanting London milliner, I realized I was starting to run late for the opening of my live painting performance, "A Cocktail in Rome / A Coffee Between Artists. "  At G-rough gallery bar of the gorgeous art &design hotel in central Rome.

I was somewhere near Piazza del Popolo, having gone to look for the studio of the artist Luigi Ontani, whose atelier is located on a street nearby. Ontani was not to be found in the studio, so I looked for him at Café Rosati, the historical gathering place to the  artists of the Arte Povera movement.

I wished to paint him, of course, during the performance, for he is one of Rome’s living artist legends. I had met him in my younger days, always recognizable in his splendid silk suits in flamboyant colors.

 Luigi was not at the bar, so I left a letter at the studio with my number. I had lunch at ease—la pasta alla matriciana, which, to me, was an emotionally loaded recipe, reminding me of a certain Roman who loved it, when I loved him.

The whole return to Rome after such an absence felt a lot like walking in another version of my self.

 Despite the changes in my life, eternal Rome still looked the same, and people I had met years before started to turn up, slipping back into the most natural friendship.

It suddenly dawned on me that my performance was in 30 minutes, and I had to run over to Piazza Navona, and next to it, the little Piazza Pasquino, where stands  G-Rough, where the performance was to start. 

Scolding myself for being too comfortable with time, I ran, puffing out of breath, across the cobbles in red suede heeled boots.

It was a street near the Valentino museum. A quiet street, where everything seemed closed and deserted at this particular hour, where, in a corner of a peeling, earth-colored building, I saw a very shinily decorated little door.

On the flung open door where hanging most unexpected array of objects. Very exotic. Not in the least Roman. There were bells and flags and things that glittered in gold, and my curiosity was roused, so I click-clacked across the street to peer into its dark insides.

The space was tiny, like a big wardrobe. The innards of the space were shadow, but the framing of this shadow was so shiny and out of the ordinary that I was drawn in to see better what lay there.

In the biggest shadow sat a man, a bald man. In front of him was a table upon which he was doing something. He greeted me. He was clearly a monk—a Buddhist monk.

“What is it that you do?” the monk asked.

“I am a painter, an artist. I’m doing a performance here in Rome,” I replied.

“Do you love what you do?” the monk asked.

“I love what I do. It is who I am. But it is difficult sometimes. I’m a mother. It is difficult to live from this sometimes.”

“What you do is very important for this world. È molto importante. Non lo dimenticare.”

“This is for you,” he said, placing incense sticks into my hand. “Every morning, light one and remember who you are. Say to yourself, I am an artist on my path, and light it.”

He then took another box of incense—of the same kind, the Nag Champa Agarbathi incense in a yellow box with red letters—and insisted I take them both.

And then, I left, for there was nothing I really wanted to buy—I was just curious. And I ran a kilometer to G-Rough, via the Colosseo, to start the performance on time.

Again, as the first time, I hoped—and was more convinced through experience—that the Buddhist monk must have meant a blessing.

Of course, he was.

That particular performance was sponsored by my friend from "La Famiglia" the art collector Gabriele Salini, who hosted me and the performance in his beautiful boutique design & art hotel.

The performance was in the Gallery Bar on the street level, and this time, live, I painted while the wonderful G-Rough cocktail masters made us drinks and tiny butter pizzas.

 While I painted, Assia de Baudi, the Italian writer and collaborator on the project, was in close proximity, unobtrusively listening to the conversations between myself and the other artists I was painting.

Assia, myself, and G-Rough started to collaborate with a desire to create  a coffee table book, in which woud appear the portraits I was painting the Roman artists—many of whom have art work in this art and design hotel, and represent a part of the Contemporary Roman art scene.

At G-Rough, I painted portraits from life of the artists: Pietro Pasolini, Zazie, Guendalina Salini, Francesca Del Gatto, Francesca Dusica, Francesca Romana Pinzari, Giuli Pidodoro, Marco Raparelli, Flavio Del Marco, Valerie Gianpietro, Alessandro Ciccorria, Alessandro Piangiamore, Thomas Hutton, Mario Del Mare, Luca Padroni, and Antonello Viola.

The artist Enzo Cucchi appeared every day and observed the live performance from the bar, but when asked if I could paint him, he flat-out refused. Capricious as I sometimes am, I painted him anyway—for the gallery bar had mirrored walls, and he watched me paint him from his reflection. It was a sort of capricious double act from both of us. He was glad I did it, or he wouldn’t have allowed it.

Luigi Ontani on the other hand telephoned and invited me for breakfast at Rosati Bar the following day, where, amidst the rush of the morning caffè goers, with his Tuscan gallerist present as well as a young celebrity photographer from London, I painted him as we broke the fast. He was so satisfied with the portrait that he asked me to give it to him. Flattered by the great artist- I gave him the portrait. 

 On the way to paint him and back form the painting I walked past the little magic door of the Buddhist monk, which was shut, and so plain from the outside, with nothing interesting to it whatsoever. It looked as if it had not been opened for years. 

On the first night of the performance, while still relatively incognito to the Romans, I had wandered out of G-Rough and towards Piazza Farnese, which I loved dearly, having lived very close to it and having experienced quite a bit of my earlier life there. 

I remembered eating my first-ever raw meat—tartare—there, quite by accident. A journalist had invited me to dinner, and when I asked him to recommend something to eat, I unknowingly ordered it. An on-and-off vegetarian, I was extraordinarily terrified when, unaware of what this dish actually was, I watched the waiter ceremoniously prepare this raw meat and raw egg specialty for me. Out of politeness, I had to try it, and I was absolutely shocked at how much I liked it.

I walked over the cobbles to the square and across it, wearing high heels and the emperor’s hat, when—ho!—someone stopped me from Bar Caponeschi. "Vieni qua!" he demanded in the imperative. "Ecco l’imperatore di Giappone," he said, proceeding to explain how he had watched the coronation of the Emperor of Japan that very day and that my hat was just like the emperor’s.

The words belonged to a familiar face that reeled in my memory storage until I remembered the incident some 15 years before, when I a 22 year old, had met the famous man at a collector's elegant exhibition afterparty and had stolen a Cuban cigar from his mouth whilst he was mid conversation—just because he was the notorious art critic and curator Achille Bonito Oliva- and I wanted to tease him- or simply and have him notice me - the young artist.

Achille invited me to sit at the table with him and his numerous friends, had wine brought to me, and, within a few sentences, found out who I was, what I was doing in Rome, and—perhaps to test my competence—he invited me to come and paint him from life the next morning in his house.

When he left, the grand man that he is, it was up to his friends to fill me in with details, address, and their shock at something like this occurring in the first place. Achille Bonito Oliva does not do this sort of thing— Paolo explained, and the fact that he had invited me to paint him, in his house, the next day, was a great honor and an exception.

The following day, I awoke early, had breakfast at the gorgeous artsy hotel home for the duration of the performance,  and walked over to the street the infamous Italian art critic resides on.  I stopped at a tiny old man's bar the kind Rome is full of and had a prosecco to help me chill out, for Achille was a big deal when I was a young artist and still is in Italy and internationally. I was curious to get to know who he is behind all the legends. 

The door of the elegant palazzo apartment was opened by a lady and I was served coffee in Achille's living room, surrounded by artworks from many art masters of the last century and stacks of books. He sat in front of me in a living room so impeccably clean that I was relieved my watercolors, at this point, no longer made a mess while painting. The greatest Italian Critic i was warned about in my younger days, and I talked for an hour as I painted. I did not feel fear, and the portrait turned out perhaps younger and sharper, as I had expected him to be- during the dialogue learned about Achille's journey in art—how his passion for it began, and which artists and families we had both worked with. Then we took a photo of him and the painting. He said he liked it. And I retuned to G-rough to paint the artistes tightly booked, to fill in as much of my time with actual painting, before my return to Split. 

One of the nights, I was swept up by the artists I had painted for the performance—Valeria Gianpietro and Alessandro Ciccorria—who took me to dinner, with Mario Del Mare, and a European prince in disguise, and a few other artists in tow. We had a wonderful night of dancing in some club. Another evening, I was taken to the house of an art journalist for a house party, and when I arrived, I was surprised by how many people I knew. It amazed me that this bustling social life I had left—my Roman life, almost two decades ago—had carried on always in unceasing parties and art.

This time, I had arrived in Rome by ship—sailing from Split to Ancona, then by train—carrying two large portraits of my art patrons at the time, the Formilli-Fendi couple. One was a silk satin and concrete portrait of La Rodro, and the other, concrete and oils on Irish linen, was of Andrea. 

Missing the first train because of the traffic as Flavio drove me to the station, I almost missed the boat home, and almost wanted to , for I liked feeling a part of this Roman reality where there fact I was an artist was normal. I now left Rome with photographs of the portraits I had completed of the Roman artists, along with incredible reconnections, and the life stories of artists residing in Rome, with plans to return and complete the project. 

Some artists were hesitant about being painted—it’s strange to be asked, isn’t it to be painted form life in a bar? To some, it sounds corny, like street caricatures. But the moment of painting is magical, almost alchemical. Every artist who participated thanked me for the experience, the dialogue, and the exchange. 

I was grateful to hear the incredible ideas and inspirations of so many brilliant and sensitive souls—to learn how they feel, how they work, and who they are. 

Since the encounter with the Second Buddhist monk, every morning, I light that very brand of incense stick—using the gas flame that also brews my morning coffee—and say to myself: 

"I am an artist on my path."  

As incredible as it is, its the thing I seem to keep reminding myself of in Croatia. 

The familiarity of this scent has become sacred to me. My home smells of this incense every morning ever since.