At what point in your artistic journey are you ready to officially call yourself an artist?
Maybe you have always loved drawing, or painting, or colouring. Maybe you have always thought of yourself as crafty or creative. You have collected art materials from all kinds of media and have canvases and sketchbooks and collages tucked away on shelves or in the room or space you have designated as your craft space/art studio/creative inspirational pile. When do you decide to make the leap from being an at home, behind closed doors creative, to calling yourself an artist?
Webster's Dictionary has two definitions for artist. The second one may be the reason you are hesitant to consider calling yourself an artist.
artist noun
: a person skilled in one of the fine arts
My immediate reaction to that definition makes me feel inadequate. I have never been to art school. I have not studied one or any of the fine arts in a formal institution. Am I even skilled? And how skilled do you have to be? When are your skills good enough? When you get compliments? When you sell your work? When you graduate from an accredited art school? Who decides when you are skilled?
The path to becoming an artist is not always linear. Going to art school and gaining the skills in fine arts is one way to be called an artist. (and if I had a time machine, perhaps that is the way I would go about it!)
But there is another definition under the word artist.
artist noun
: one who professes and practices an imaginative art
This definition puts the ball in your court. It makes YOU the one to determine whether or not you are an artist. YOU get to be the one to profess and practice your art. As far as I'm concerned, if you create, you are an artist, whether that creation is food, a painting, a collage, an organized pantry shelf, a bed arranged with pillows and an artfully placed throw, a photograph taken with your cell phone, a sculpture . . . the list can go on and on.
The painting above, which I have entitle Alone, I created after not having picked up a brush in 20 years. I took art in high school and while I had always loved art, I never really learned the skills. Art class was considered an easy elective for many and the teacher never really seemed to be engaged in teaching art. Class consisted of an intro to how to use oil paint (emphasis on how to clean up after yourself), using a projector to trace an image onto a board, and then left to try and paint it. I am sure at some point some tips were given but I was never given enough skills or encouragement to even consider pursuing art past the time the bell rang after class. The thought of art school didn't even cross my mind. Because it was never put there in the first place.
So one day, I took my daughters, then about 4 and 5 years old to the local craft store to buy them some paper and crayons and stickers and whatever else they wanted to fill up their craft area with. I had always encouraged their creativity but for years I had denied me my own. That day I wandered down the aisle that had the canvases and on a whim I bought a large one, some brushes and some acrylic paints. And out of that, I painted Alone. I brought it downstairs and placed it on the fireplace mantel. And while on the inside I felt like I had come back to myself, I had created something, I balked at the word artist. In fact it remained unsigned for ten years. I wasn't confident enough. I worried other people would think I was showing off or even worse, that the painting wasn't good enough to hang up.
Fast forward ten years and I started painting again. Sometimes it takes a while (and a divorce and a rebuilding of yourself) to get back to the easel. I have many canvases that are practice canvases. Not every piece of art is meant for the wall. I think for every piece you display (whether on your walls or social media or in a gallery) there are a dozen or a hundred pieces behind it. Does that make you less of an artist because it took practice and failed attempts to get there? Absolutely not! I wasted enough time telling myself I wasn't an artist. I had to sign my name and decide I was one. Even if I never sell a piece of art, I will from now on call myself an artist. I refuse to let those other voices, the negative comments or the self-doubt decide for me any more!
My point is, don't wait for a diploma, or a sale, or for someone else to say you are good enough. If you create, then you are an artist. Allow yourself to say the name. It can be hard, believe me. There are layers of doubt and negativity to cover that word up. But try it. Write it down in a journal or on a scrap of paper.
And then start to believe it.
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