Most people (and dictionary websites) agree that the definition of an artist is something along the lines of: "a person who produces works of art."
Of course, "art" itself is subjective - does it include only fine arts (like painting and sculpture), and traditional performing arts (like playing the flute and singing opera and dancing ballet and acting on stage)? Or do more modern productions also count as art (things like television shows and digital photographs and video game design)? Then there are those who believe there is (or should be) a distinction between "high art" and "commercial art" - that is, art created for art's sake, and art created to make a profit or promote a business. And still others who put value on art based on the artist's level of experience, or the apparent visual complexity of the piece; people who look at Picasso's fractured imagery or Rothko's color fields and derisively say "my three-year-old could paint that" - as if that is an obvious insult, as if a three-year-old is inherently incapable of producing art, or at least art that could be worth a monetary amount, art worthwhile enough to hang in a museum and copy onto t-shirts and fridge magnets. Is art only art if other people like it? If someone who has spent years of their life devoted to perfecting their craft created it? If the creator has a certain "artistic IQ"? If it was created as a labor of love?
Art - as a field of business, as a field of study - is really weird. People discount artists who make art only as a hobby - calling them "Sunday Artists," calling their art "amateurish" or "folk art," not taking them seriously because they haven't invested in their talent, their interest, and taken any "real" art classes. But they also discount artists who do do those things - artists who dare to sell their work, or who seem to tailor their work toward styles and subjects that might sell. Artists are supposed to make art because they want to make art; they aren't supposed to actually make money at it. In what other business would it be okay to make that argument?
(Side note, because I work as a substitute teacher and my husband is a high school math teacher, and I see/hear these kinds of comments every day - I think the profession of teaching, actually, is starting to go in this direction, at least in some circles. Teachers who complain about low salaries, working without a contract, or ridiculous administration requirements are told time and again that they "knew what they were getting into" when they chose to be a teacher, that teachers are supposed to do what they do because they love kids, because they want to better society, because they want to help mold the next generation - and not, heaven forbid, because they want to make a living wage, or get good benefits, or have a job with guaranteed security from year to year. Are these things mutually exclusive? Does wanting to earn an appropriate amount of money for the time and effort you put into your job mean that you don't also enjoy some of the aspects of your work? No!)
While it may be true that people do not become teachers - or artists - to strike it rich, it is hardly fair to expect those in these professions to want to - or be able to - do their work only out of the goodness of their hearts or the passion of their souls. We can't live off the smiles of children or the exhilaration of putting paint to canvas. We also need real sustenance - food and medicine and houses to live in.
For awhile, I didn't think of myself as an artist simply because I hadn't made any money off of my art. Now that I've sold a few paintings and colored pencil drawings, now that I've made some money designing custom invitations, I focus on the amount of money I've made. I tell myself I'm still not a real artist - because I haven't made very much money, because I haven't had any of my work shown in a prestigious gallery, because I'm not famous and people don't know my name or recognize my work, because I can't make a living off of selling my artwork. But where in the dictionary definition of "artist" does it insist that it applies only to those who earn enough money making art to sustain the life they'd like to have? It's not fair to myself - or to other artists - to withhold that label from myself because I feel like I've yet to earn it. For one thing, who's to say I'd feel better if I made more money? There's that double standard that looms over my head, that tells me I'd also not be a real artist if I made too much money making art, that I don't want to be a "sell-out," that it would be better, more romantic, to be a "starving artist." It's hard to win for anyone trying to fill the "artist" role - because there are so many conflicting opinions on what it even means to be an artist, what it means to create art, what art can even look like - but it's especially hard for a perfectionist like me, someone who is always in her own head, worrying that she's falling short of her own impossible standards.
The truth is - I have credentials I can list. I have a BFA in graphic design and watercolor. I displayed paintings at EMU's galleries while I was a student there, and I earned scholarship money for my artwork. I wrote an honor's thesis that placed a specific series of my watercolors into a tradition of artists who used floral imagery as a symbol for female sexuality. I have sold artwork - to family and friends, but also to strangers. Recently, I've been interviewed for a Montreal-based TV show on that same thesis (more on that in a future post). I haven't made very much money, and I've only gotten limited exposure - but that's pretty good for someone who is only 26, someone who, I'll be honest, hasn't even tried that hard, especially since graduating in 2010. I don't think there are many who would argue that I haven't earned the right to call myself an artist if I want to self-identify with that term.
And yet, I still often feel like I'm not an artist, that I'm not good enough, that I'll never be good enough. Some of that is my self-esteem, I know. And some is the nature of being a professional artist, where there is that double standard that says making money and not making money are equally damnable. And some of that doubt that plagues me is no different than what many twenty-somethings feel in their first jobs. In fact, it's such a popular feeling - that feeling of fraudulence - that there's a name for it: Impostor Syndrome. It's also something that - and here's the feminist in me - affects women more than men, because women are more likely to believe that they are not smart, not strong, not able.
Looking at that Wikipedia article I linked to above, the fourth behavior that high-achieving women with "impostor syndrome" may exhibit especially resonates with me: Avoiding Displays of Confidence. I have often thought of my self-esteem as rather bipolar - I both believe that I can achieve success and deserve to achieve success (which is why I find myself not wanting to do things I think of as being "below my station," like a temporary job at a retail store, or even working as a substitute teacher), and that I am not good enough, not smart enough, not pretty enough, not nice enough, not confident enough, not whatever enough; that I will never achieve success, that I do not deserve to achieve success. But how can someone believe those two contradictory views, either simultaneously or immediately after the other, flitting back and forth between them? The answer is hidden in that paragraph about Avoiding Displays of Confidence.
I do, deep down, believe I have value. But, because I've been so conditioned to pretend that I do not believe this about myself (because I am young, because I am a woman, because I am an artist, because that is what I see other people doing to themselves), I avoid displaying this confidence. And because I have avoided displaying this confidence for so many years, I now often actually believe I do not have value after all. My thoughts have influenced my actions, which have in turn influenced my thoughts again. I saw other women letting men speak first, and so I did the same; I read books in which teenaged girls bemoaned their weight, their looks, and so I bemoaned mine; I learned of artists who were described as great either in spite of or even because of their mental illnesses, their drug addictions, their lifetimes of suffering, and started believing that to be a great artist, I too had to suffer. I started avoiding the spotlight. I stopped giving my ideas, my voice credence. I acted as I thought I should, and then I started believing that my actions stemmed from something intrinsic about me, rather than something I'd learned to do.
So. What do I do about that?
Peggy McIntosh has a great article about this. She says:
Maybe it's not a bad thing, that I question myself, that I sit around and wonder if I can really call myself an artist. After all, it's both an indication that I have high standards for myself and an indication that I believe the word doesn't mean much anyway - that the term artist is just a label, like any other label, and that it can basically mean whatever I - or anyone else - wants it to mean. By questioning the label, by questioning any label, I'm recognizing the "conventional and oppressive hierarchies" that are around us. I'm asking if any of us have the authority to decide what gives something - or someone - value.
And that's not a bad thing to ask.
So, am I an artist? I think so. Usually. Maybe. Yes.
Of course, "art" itself is subjective - does it include only fine arts (like painting and sculpture), and traditional performing arts (like playing the flute and singing opera and dancing ballet and acting on stage)? Or do more modern productions also count as art (things like television shows and digital photographs and video game design)? Then there are those who believe there is (or should be) a distinction between "high art" and "commercial art" - that is, art created for art's sake, and art created to make a profit or promote a business. And still others who put value on art based on the artist's level of experience, or the apparent visual complexity of the piece; people who look at Picasso's fractured imagery or Rothko's color fields and derisively say "my three-year-old could paint that" - as if that is an obvious insult, as if a three-year-old is inherently incapable of producing art, or at least art that could be worth a monetary amount, art worthwhile enough to hang in a museum and copy onto t-shirts and fridge magnets. Is art only art if other people like it? If someone who has spent years of their life devoted to perfecting their craft created it? If the creator has a certain "artistic IQ"? If it was created as a labor of love?
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| Colored Pencil Drawing "Radiant Dahlia" - Detail |
Art - as a field of business, as a field of study - is really weird. People discount artists who make art only as a hobby - calling them "Sunday Artists," calling their art "amateurish" or "folk art," not taking them seriously because they haven't invested in their talent, their interest, and taken any "real" art classes. But they also discount artists who do do those things - artists who dare to sell their work, or who seem to tailor their work toward styles and subjects that might sell. Artists are supposed to make art because they want to make art; they aren't supposed to actually make money at it. In what other business would it be okay to make that argument?
(Side note, because I work as a substitute teacher and my husband is a high school math teacher, and I see/hear these kinds of comments every day - I think the profession of teaching, actually, is starting to go in this direction, at least in some circles. Teachers who complain about low salaries, working without a contract, or ridiculous administration requirements are told time and again that they "knew what they were getting into" when they chose to be a teacher, that teachers are supposed to do what they do because they love kids, because they want to better society, because they want to help mold the next generation - and not, heaven forbid, because they want to make a living wage, or get good benefits, or have a job with guaranteed security from year to year. Are these things mutually exclusive? Does wanting to earn an appropriate amount of money for the time and effort you put into your job mean that you don't also enjoy some of the aspects of your work? No!)
While it may be true that people do not become teachers - or artists - to strike it rich, it is hardly fair to expect those in these professions to want to - or be able to - do their work only out of the goodness of their hearts or the passion of their souls. We can't live off the smiles of children or the exhilaration of putting paint to canvas. We also need real sustenance - food and medicine and houses to live in.
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| The house I live in |
For awhile, I didn't think of myself as an artist simply because I hadn't made any money off of my art. Now that I've sold a few paintings and colored pencil drawings, now that I've made some money designing custom invitations, I focus on the amount of money I've made. I tell myself I'm still not a real artist - because I haven't made very much money, because I haven't had any of my work shown in a prestigious gallery, because I'm not famous and people don't know my name or recognize my work, because I can't make a living off of selling my artwork. But where in the dictionary definition of "artist" does it insist that it applies only to those who earn enough money making art to sustain the life they'd like to have? It's not fair to myself - or to other artists - to withhold that label from myself because I feel like I've yet to earn it. For one thing, who's to say I'd feel better if I made more money? There's that double standard that looms over my head, that tells me I'd also not be a real artist if I made too much money making art, that I don't want to be a "sell-out," that it would be better, more romantic, to be a "starving artist." It's hard to win for anyone trying to fill the "artist" role - because there are so many conflicting opinions on what it even means to be an artist, what it means to create art, what art can even look like - but it's especially hard for a perfectionist like me, someone who is always in her own head, worrying that she's falling short of her own impossible standards.
The truth is - I have credentials I can list. I have a BFA in graphic design and watercolor. I displayed paintings at EMU's galleries while I was a student there, and I earned scholarship money for my artwork. I wrote an honor's thesis that placed a specific series of my watercolors into a tradition of artists who used floral imagery as a symbol for female sexuality. I have sold artwork - to family and friends, but also to strangers. Recently, I've been interviewed for a Montreal-based TV show on that same thesis (more on that in a future post). I haven't made very much money, and I've only gotten limited exposure - but that's pretty good for someone who is only 26, someone who, I'll be honest, hasn't even tried that hard, especially since graduating in 2010. I don't think there are many who would argue that I haven't earned the right to call myself an artist if I want to self-identify with that term.
And yet, I still often feel like I'm not an artist, that I'm not good enough, that I'll never be good enough. Some of that is my self-esteem, I know. And some is the nature of being a professional artist, where there is that double standard that says making money and not making money are equally damnable. And some of that doubt that plagues me is no different than what many twenty-somethings feel in their first jobs. In fact, it's such a popular feeling - that feeling of fraudulence - that there's a name for it: Impostor Syndrome. It's also something that - and here's the feminist in me - affects women more than men, because women are more likely to believe that they are not smart, not strong, not able.
Looking at that Wikipedia article I linked to above, the fourth behavior that high-achieving women with "impostor syndrome" may exhibit especially resonates with me: Avoiding Displays of Confidence. I have often thought of my self-esteem as rather bipolar - I both believe that I can achieve success and deserve to achieve success (which is why I find myself not wanting to do things I think of as being "below my station," like a temporary job at a retail store, or even working as a substitute teacher), and that I am not good enough, not smart enough, not pretty enough, not nice enough, not confident enough, not whatever enough; that I will never achieve success, that I do not deserve to achieve success. But how can someone believe those two contradictory views, either simultaneously or immediately after the other, flitting back and forth between them? The answer is hidden in that paragraph about Avoiding Displays of Confidence.
I do, deep down, believe I have value. But, because I've been so conditioned to pretend that I do not believe this about myself (because I am young, because I am a woman, because I am an artist, because that is what I see other people doing to themselves), I avoid displaying this confidence. And because I have avoided displaying this confidence for so many years, I now often actually believe I do not have value after all. My thoughts have influenced my actions, which have in turn influenced my thoughts again. I saw other women letting men speak first, and so I did the same; I read books in which teenaged girls bemoaned their weight, their looks, and so I bemoaned mine; I learned of artists who were described as great either in spite of or even because of their mental illnesses, their drug addictions, their lifetimes of suffering, and started believing that to be a great artist, I too had to suffer. I started avoiding the spotlight. I stopped giving my ideas, my voice credence. I acted as I thought I should, and then I started believing that my actions stemmed from something intrinsic about me, rather than something I'd learned to do.
 |
| A super clear photograph from 2006, displaying my honors cords, my thespian cords, and my "art key" pin I was awarded for high school graduation day |
So. What do I do about that?
Peggy McIntosh has a great article about this. She says:
"I think we need to take a double look at the
phenomenon of feeling like a fraud... I
suggest both that we mustn’t let the world make us feel
like frauds, and that we must keep alive in ourselves
that sense of fraudulence which sometimes overtakes
us in public places. I suggest that on the one hand
feeling like a fraud indicates that we have, deplorably,
internalized value systems that said most people were
incompetent and illegitimate in the spheres of power
and public life and authority. But then on the other
hand, I suggest that when we apologize in public, we
are at some level making a deeply wise refusal to carry
on the pretense of deserving and feeling good about
roles in conventional and oppressive hierarchies. I
think that most feelings of personal fraudulence need
to be analyzed politically and deplored, especially
feelings of fraudulence in lower caste people. But on
the other hand, I also think that feeling like a fraud is
conducive to social and political change, and that some
forms of it should be applauded and developed in us,
so that we become better at spotting fraudulence in,
and trying to alter, the forms of our culture."
Maybe it's not a bad thing, that I question myself, that I sit around and wonder if I can really call myself an artist. After all, it's both an indication that I have high standards for myself and an indication that I believe the word doesn't mean much anyway - that the term artist is just a label, like any other label, and that it can basically mean whatever I - or anyone else - wants it to mean. By questioning the label, by questioning any label, I'm recognizing the "conventional and oppressive hierarchies" that are around us. I'm asking if any of us have the authority to decide what gives something - or someone - value.
And that's not a bad thing to ask.
So, am I an artist? I think so. Usually. Maybe. Yes.
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