Labeling Oneself as an Artist and Why I Have Avoided It
I’ve strongly resisted the label of artist for a long time, because I don’t feel worthy of it, on the one hand, and on the other hand, to avoid the negative connotations that are entwined with the label in my backwards, redneck brain.
Who is an artist? (the ingrained notions)
Here’s what I grew up thinking of artists-not actively thinking or deliberately deciding to believe, but just absorbing in Kansas/Midwestern culture.
Artists are people who do not have real jobs. They are as likely to spend their time drinking absinthe, doing drugs, and sleeping around as they are to do anything honest and deserving of compensation. Artists do not contribute to the growth and welfare of society in meaningful ways. They are probably not very smart, because if they were smart, they would have gone into a profession like engineering or medicine where they could actually do some good and make real money to support their families. Artists, above all else, are irresponsible, childish, and poor. POOR!
Conversely, artists are talented (even if that talent isn’t valued very highly). They can draw anything they can imagine effortlessly. Their imaginations are superior to almost anyone elses’s. They speak a secret language of color and form, and really, if you want to rearrange your living room and get some new curtains, an artist would not be a bad person to ask. They’ll probably help for beer money.
Why I am not an Artist (the rationalizations)
I’m creative, sure. I do a bit of writing, but writing isn’t art, because art is visual, and writing is language. And yes, I know how to operate a camera, but artwork should convey emotions, tell a story, and my photography doesn’t convey any such thing. Anyone can pick up a camera and point it at something. Anyone can take enough shots, throwing out the bad, to make themselves look like a moderately decent photographer.
I’m a web designer, but design is not art. Design is communication, and it has strict rules (rules that I struggle every day to learn and understand better). And anyway, I primarily excel at writing code and solving technical problems, less so than making things beautiful and artistic.
Despite my ingrained beliefs about artists as professionals, I grew up secretly wishing I could be some kind of science artist, but I wouldn’t ever really because I wanted to contribute and make money. And finally, for some reason, I cannot ever be an artist because I cannot draw anything that I picture in my head.
Why I am an Artist (the realization)
First of all, most of the bullshit I grew up believing about artists is just that-bullshit. Artists are as intelligent as anyone else, if not more so,as responsible, and they are no more likely to drink heavily and do drugs than anyone else. They contribute to society in less quantifiable ways than say, an engineer, but they act in a way as society’s conscience, as it’s outlet. As a means of self-reflection. Artists play a role, and while I don’t quite understand that role, I know they have one and it’s deeply important. Being an artist is a real job, and has all the baggage that jobs have. It’s also really, really hard to make a living at.
Being any good does not determine whether one is an artist or not. And art encompasses many more skills than just drawing. My photography may be something anyone can do, but every once and a while I make something nobody else but me could make. I’m actively trying to sell prints of my work actively, so I guess that right there makes me an artist in the same way that actively pursuing publication made me a writer.
Design may or may not be art, but I’m a working creative individual. Sometimes, what I create is art. Sometimes, it’s crap. Well, more often than not. But I share more in common with working illustrators and painters now than I do with my friends who spend their days slicing DNA in laboratories.
So, yeah. I am an artist. Whatever that means-I’m still learning. It’s not all that I am, but I’m done not calling myself that just because I can’t draw and I grew up believing some kind of dumb things about who writers are. My life is centered around creative acts of one form or another, so. There it is.
Have any of you ever resisted labeling yourself like that, for similar mixtures of reasons? I’m curious to know if this is difficult just for me, or if it is for others.
PS: I keep trying to fix that drawing thing. I’ve been stuck in the first couple of chapters of “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” for a couple of years. Maybe this year will be the one that I finally get past the weird tracing stuff and start learning how to stop myself from drawing on the left side of the brain.
Originally published at JeremiahTolbert.com. You can comment here or there.