Are You an Artist?

Posted on 8/22/2008 - 1 Comment
Topics: new_topic

Journal page, August 2008

A little boy saw me drawing this creature and asked, “Are you an artist?”

Me? An artist? Whoa…that’s a really big word. Way too big for me. Artist? That’s someone else. Or is it?
I don’t know how you define artist or decide you are one. What I do know is that the A-word causes a lot of grief for people–not just me.

It unleashes all the lies you learned growing up:

Creativity is a gift bestowed on the lucky few. Being an artist means painting in a loft in Manhattan. Suffering is a prerequisite for making art. And so on. The inner critic thrives on this sort of thing. Mine is so loud, I’ve given it a name, TOI (The Ogre Inside). TOI is invested in keeping me safe, secure, and stuck. Stuck in the muck of creative despair.

It’s kind of funny now that I’m writing it down. What drama! What angst! What a waste!
So I have a proposition. Let’s just drop the A-word and get on with making art–or whatever you call it.

Comments

1 Response to Are You an Artist?

It was a Huge change. I had the realization, took a while to adjust to it - it is a BIG word - and now I'm just trying to create without judgement. That's hard. I can't drop the word yet, I still need it to sustain me a bit.

Posted by Richard G Goldstein · via daveritt.faso.com · 67 months ago

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Are You an Artist?

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1 Response to Are You an Artist?

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