What kind of a painter was I?

I painted in silence and isolation for the first seven years in Chicago’s Hyde Park. Although painful, there was a certain benefit to be derived from rejection. As the Chicago art world ignored me and labeled me a New York Painter—with its subtext Jewish, I was forced to question the premise of my work. Were my ideas limited to geography, to a particular city? What kind of a painter was I? I had to define my work and my aims to myself with greater precision. My work matured. Vera Klement