I haven't always considered myself an artist, and it is only now after decades of drawing, painting, and creating, that I am comfortable introducing myself as an artist. why is that? i read somewhere that calling yourself an artist is pretentious, but if you don't, who will? I think that in my case, I am constantly struggling to balance work and art, and when I meet people in the corporate work environment, I am obliged to introduce myself as manager blah blah blah. Then when I'm outside the office and asked, "what do you do?", I find myself grappling for the right words to describe myself. Is this a reflection of my inner struggle to balance two of the major parts of my life that help define who I am?
Not that I don't like my job, I do, but I like creating art better. Way better. And both of these areas represent who I am, I am not one or the other. I don't want folks to perceive me as just another number cruncher, or for that matter, just another flaky artist. I enjoy the challenge of my job, and I definitely enjoy the benefits, like having money to buy food, but I sometimes think that I am using my job as an excuse to not fully commit to the artistic lifestyle. Is this just me getting in my own way? Or am I buying into the whole "starving artist" theory that says you must suffer for your art to be considered a "real" artist? I hope not, because I'm not much for suffering.
I also get the impression that a lot of folks have a different definition of artist than I do, just as they have their own ideas of what "art" is. So in the end, I have to listen to my heart, and ask myself, what is the one thing in my life that has remained constant, the one thing that I am driven to do, the thing that makes me happiest, and will do until my dying day, long after I've retired from the corporate world? Its creating, its imagining, its expressing myself. Its art. So yes, I am an artist, but I am also an artist that happens to have a knack for numbers and organization. And I like to eat.
Not that I don't like my job, I do, but I like creating art better. Way better. And both of these areas represent who I am, I am not one or the other. I don't want folks to perceive me as just another number cruncher, or for that matter, just another flaky artist. I enjoy the challenge of my job, and I definitely enjoy the benefits, like having money to buy food, but I sometimes think that I am using my job as an excuse to not fully commit to the artistic lifestyle. Is this just me getting in my own way? Or am I buying into the whole "starving artist" theory that says you must suffer for your art to be considered a "real" artist? I hope not, because I'm not much for suffering.
I also get the impression that a lot of folks have a different definition of artist than I do, just as they have their own ideas of what "art" is. So in the end, I have to listen to my heart, and ask myself, what is the one thing in my life that has remained constant, the one thing that I am driven to do, the thing that makes me happiest, and will do until my dying day, long after I've retired from the corporate world? Its creating, its imagining, its expressing myself. Its art. So yes, I am an artist, but I am also an artist that happens to have a knack for numbers and organization. And I like to eat.
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