Blog #17
OWN IT-DO YOU CALL YOURSELF AN ARTIST?
I have been creating art since my little baby fingers could wrap themselves around anything that made a mark on the paper. I couldn’t get enough of doodling, creating, painting, and sketching. This blood has run through my veins since the day I was born and it has brought more happiness and fulfillment than most things in my life to date.
Throughout the years I have maintained an artistic practice and managed to constantly create regardless of my situation. However, at times it was scant and I completely lost sight of not only the need to create but to make myself whole in any way, shape or form. When I would come out of my resistance (separate blog) coma I would once again find intense motivation, excitement and determination to make creating art my sole source of income and saturate myself daily in the practice. Then, as quick as the determination came, it would go.
Today, I am at a place where I let nothing get in the way of my creativity. Nothing. But that’s not the part I want to emphasize. I suddenly realized that I was calling myself an “artist”. I had always embarrassingly mentioned I “did” art as a “hobby” (which it was) but felt silly and most importantly undeserving of this exciting and defining title. I was just playing around. I would never be good, I would never deserve to be identified as an artist because I wasn’t “worthy” of it. I was also making shit up in my head on what one had to do to deserve such a weighty title. Like most things I wasn’t worthy of, this one particularly stung.
The “sting” lasted a very long time. It was as if, even when painting became the most prominent activity in my life, I was never going to be “worthy” of the title. I had to be Basquiat, listed on Artsy, be sought after, have a gallery, and the list could go on and on. I would also constantly move the finish line. If I had achieved a particular goal with my art, it was still not enough. I worked a “non” artsy day job so it would never be a title I deserved until I was completely immersed with the big wigs in the seemingly impenetrable art world.
I’m sure you can guess where I am going with this? You are a F&$$#$ artist if you want to be an artist. You can have business cards that say artist, banners, t-shirts, tattoos, sky writers, and any other paraphernalia that labels you as an artist if that's what you want. It’s up to YOU. NOT the art world, the galleries, your partner, not your inner hellish voice that continues to tell you “don’t deserve it”. You don’t have to be famous, full-time, or own a gallery. You don’t need an indoctrination, art snob, or parade to own that title. You own it if you create art in any form and in any amounts.
I’m a F@#$%#$ artist and LOVE being a F#$%$ artist and I want to tell the entire world. I want to scream it at the top of my lungs when the inevitable “what do you do for a living” comes creeping up at every socially awkward function on the planet. I don’t have to qualify it, explain it, defend it, or justify it. I just have to state it and believe it. It’s that easy.
I saw this on facebook the other day which prompted my blog this week. I think it’s worth printing out and keeping in full view in both your creative and non-creative space just as a reminder that you are an artist!!