Being An Artist
It's not like I had much choice.
For me, once I found I could draw pictures as a child, I was pretty much lost in the idea of "being an artist". My mom showed me how to draw a stickman from her brown vinyl easy chair, and I've been drawing variants of that stickman ever since.
I felt for years that actually calling myself an artist was pompous, as if the vocation was somehow above me. But gradually that has faded and now, finally - in my mid-40's - I realize that living off one's trust-fund and trying to sell awful watercolors of larvae in coffeeshops isn't really all that glamorous.
Who am I kidding? I still think it is. Well, the illusion of it anyway. I am totally cought up in the fantasy illusion of the glamour of doing this - even if it is small, obscure. Even if I'm not a star.
There are problems with this. First, I have no trust fund. Second, I don't do watercolor, and I'm not all that into larvae. Another is that I think I can actually be pretty good. Is that pompous of me to say so? Sure. But it's a sign of growth that I can give myself a compliment and not throttle myself immediately after saying it. Or is that what I just did?
(Okay, I take that "pompous" comment back. )
Being modest and and a successful artist do not go together. They cancel one another out. Like being a CEO - can any of them be modest? No. Otherwise their worthiness for forty million dollar annual bonuses might not be so obvious.
Artists need flair, confidence, brashness. Why oh why did I adopt modesty as a trait? I should hop into my time machine and talk to my kid self, telling the chubby tyke that he's the most spectacular artist of all time. Build up his protective layer of BS to surround his actual core talents so that he has a chance at making a go of it. Hey, this kid's a frickin' genius!
(Okay, not really. Probably not. Well, maybe. )
But this is not the point. The point is this kid needs more ego, like all the overpraised brats of today. Perhaps if I had more of that... (sigh). The trick is confidence. If you can fake that...
So, I am an artist. It is more than just what I do, it is what I am. I draw and write and create stuff. Even if it isn't what I do as a profession, even if I have no trust fund to support my illusions, it is what I do. It is one of the many things that defines me.
For me, once I found I could draw pictures as a child, I was pretty much lost in the idea of "being an artist". My mom showed me how to draw a stickman from her brown vinyl easy chair, and I've been drawing variants of that stickman ever since.
I felt for years that actually calling myself an artist was pompous, as if the vocation was somehow above me. But gradually that has faded and now, finally - in my mid-40's - I realize that living off one's trust-fund and trying to sell awful watercolors of larvae in coffeeshops isn't really all that glamorous.
Who am I kidding? I still think it is. Well, the illusion of it anyway. I am totally cought up in the fantasy illusion of the glamour of doing this - even if it is small, obscure. Even if I'm not a star.
There are problems with this. First, I have no trust fund. Second, I don't do watercolor, and I'm not all that into larvae. Another is that I think I can actually be pretty good. Is that pompous of me to say so? Sure. But it's a sign of growth that I can give myself a compliment and not throttle myself immediately after saying it. Or is that what I just did?
(Okay, I take that "pompous" comment back. )
Being modest and and a successful artist do not go together. They cancel one another out. Like being a CEO - can any of them be modest? No. Otherwise their worthiness for forty million dollar annual bonuses might not be so obvious.
Artists need flair, confidence, brashness. Why oh why did I adopt modesty as a trait? I should hop into my time machine and talk to my kid self, telling the chubby tyke that he's the most spectacular artist of all time. Build up his protective layer of BS to surround his actual core talents so that he has a chance at making a go of it. Hey, this kid's a frickin' genius!
(Okay, not really. Probably not. Well, maybe. )
But this is not the point. The point is this kid needs more ego, like all the overpraised brats of today. Perhaps if I had more of that... (sigh). The trick is confidence. If you can fake that...
So, I am an artist. It is more than just what I do, it is what I am. I draw and write and create stuff. Even if it isn't what I do as a profession, even if I have no trust fund to support my illusions, it is what I do. It is one of the many things that defines me.
posted by K.Webster at 12:20 AM
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