Love love love this post! Thank you Carolyn! For the longest time I have identified as a writer, but a couple of weeks go I had a somewhat of an artistic meltdown (or creative identity crisis?!) and decided to abandon a novel manuscript I'd been working on since 2022. Letting go was hard (it felt like a failure) but it was the right thing to do. Then one evening my kid and I started making collages for fun, and I found myself making collage poems. I never thought mixing words and illustrations/pictures from magazines would bring me so much joy, but it does. That's when I realized there are no rules when it comes to art. There are no boxes and you don't have to create in silos. You can do what YOU want! You can contain multitudes! That's when I realized I was an artist.
Hi Michelle, so glad this post was timely for you! I relate to the pain of abandoning a novel, been there myself—know that the work you’ve done will always be there to return if you should desire to in the future, and you have grown so much by having written what you have even if it’s not the final form! I love crossing mediums and experimenting as an artist, and excited to see what unfolds for you in your continued discovery towards joy.
Oh so relatable! Thank you so much for sharing. I can tick almost all of your 'Every reason why I didn’t believe I could be an artist' list. I didn't start creating art until 2020-21. A few pieces here and there over the years but nothing consistent and nothing that ever made me think I could be an artist. And yet, here I am now calling myself an artist because I pushed away my fears and doubts and just started drawing and creating since it's something I love to do and have always wanted to do. No more fear – I am an artist!!!
I LOVE this so much -- especially as someone who also struggled to define myself as an artist for many of the same reasons you shared. And the cool thing is...a few years ago when I finally decided to say out loud "I'm a writer. I'm an artist. I'm a children's book maker," that's when things really started happening for me. People get nervous about labels (as you addressed so well), but I like to think of them as permission. I had to give myself permission. Once I did, it made all the difference. Anyway, love this post!
What a treasure to hear your story Rachel, and how much synchronicity started happening once you claimed your path 💛 Giving ourselves permission is everything!
I love this! I’ve had similar arguments with myself for years about being a scientist (I don’t have a PhD). But I’m leaning in to calling myself both a scientist and an artist and it feels pretty great.
This post is so important! I have a very similar list of all the reasons not to call myself an artist (including a failed foray into oil painting). I love the list of reasons TO call yourself an artist, and the hilariously absurd notion of a formal progression from Junior to Senior to VP Artist 😂
Thanks Kelcey! Curses to oil painting and a lifetime of seeing "oil on canvas" in every museum and thinking that is the be all, end all medium 😮💨 (though I would love to give oils a go sometime!)
Haha, yes and when I (briefly) took a few private art lessons, the teacher compared oil paint to poetry as the highest medium/form. And I was like, "welp, I'm a prose writer who will never master oils..."
I have a lot of the ideas that are labeled in your article. Not going to school, not drawing as a child, not being driven to do it as a young person. But I struggle even now with the driven part. I am not always driven to do art, I have to make myself. But I am always happy when I do...well, almost, a bad painting might take away some joy.
I started calling myself an artist when I decided I wanted to sell my art. So, I had to build a lot of confidence ahead of time. It helped that I had made it a project during 2020 so that I would keep busy. It also helped when I started really letting people see my work. Even having it as a background on zoom meetings. I got lots of compliments and then it got easier to call myself an artist.
Started sharing poetry with people about a year ago, finally decided to call myself a poet about 4 months ago. You’re right, taking that mantle onto myself does change my habits. I love being a poet! I also work in STEM and don’t make most of my money from art.
I like to think of myself as my own sugar daddy. I love the playful side of myself who finds himself writing a poem all of a sudden. You’re also right that doing the practice is so key, so I like to keep a little nursery of fledgling poems ready to be edited and polished whenever I’m in that whittling editing mood, which is so fun too.
In a way, I feel luck was with me. Five weeks after I picked up a paintbrush, people began buying my art, and so I called myself an artist. I needed that validation and I got it fast. I have not turned away from my art Muse from that day, and she can be possessive and compulsive. It’s a wild ride, it’s been 2 years, I’m on for the long haul and I don’t know where she’s taking me. It doesn’t matter, I’m learning new things every day and I make art. It lights me up.
So… this is the second time, together with the last one about your reading rituals and practices, your article is - gladly- restacked by someone I follow on my page.
I loved already the other one but I don’t subscribe instantly to all publications, unless I read a couple and really love it, find one of my people and community in the author. I meet their Truth, their heart and their soul and there I am.
This second post lead this human right here 🙋🏻♀️ to subscribe 🥰🩷
I’d love to give a try also to what you proposed in the quick top note: I enter for a chance to get a try of one month.
As for the piece in itself, I felt seen and witnessed. As well as having much to say about how we truly share these types of uncertainty inside our beings, adding up to all of the ones we naturally face as humans in our own growing and becoming, in life here.
Specially in the societies, environments and families, stories we are born into.
But for those I want to restack this for other creatives and artists from all avenues to read it and start or continued to give themselves the titles their nature deserves through this encouragement.
Thank you kindly Alessandra, so glad to have you here and to see and witness each other in our uncertainties and uplift each other! I've given you the 1 month trial :)
Ohhh dear Carolyne, this means more than what you can imagine. Thank you truly for being so generous 🥺🙏🤍
Especially because of the moment I’m living right about now in my life, creating the one I was meant to live from 0. Living all of my true self in this world, like I never could. In the present while moving towards my future, going towards all of the dreams and vision of it I constantly have, while growing them. I started to share myself and so also about it just these recent days through my notes with our communities of human beings supporting and witnessing each other through our own unique journeys and path in our life, healing, growths, evolutions, becoming.
Finally having a confidence in it, I would have never thought as even a possibility in my life. And chose to finally post my own voice, writing… hopefully in this craziness surrounding me, doing it soon.
Thank you for giving me the possibility to dive into your own stories, work, art presented and created in your life with this try.
So excited to explore it all! I’m sure you will be source of inspirations and creation while I also continue to water and properly build my own creative practice
Well this was validating in an amazing way today. When I was born my mom was 43 and my dad was 50. I had three older sister, one 19, one 16, one 9. The two older had incredible music talent and their singing made me cry as a baby. But, I can not sing in tune and as I was growing up I had to suffer their barbs about my talent. The oldest sister till this day (she is 89) still sings in a choir every week. She is an incredible creative in music and art. She still paints. There was another sister two years after me. My mom was exhausted. There was never anything creative left for me. I did excel through school and got scholarships for university. I have had two incredible careers, one in organizational management in the luxury goods sphere (a definite uber creative vibe) and the second in not-for-profit funding. (lots of empathy learning). Now at 70 I have the time and means to create, the dream of my whole life; it was just squelched down. The extra bonus is I have 4 incredible grandchildren who are artists in their own right and citizens of the world. I get to say I am an artist and a writer even without selling anything, or publishing anything. All theses years I have been collecting and archiving ideas of what I love and know. I have a book or two and many creative art ideas.
I'm starting to tell people I'm a illustrator. Because only saying "I'm an artist" everyone has that question mark on their face. Because they don't know if I draw or make music 🤣
This ❤ as well I have similar list and only last year I wrote online and admitted to myself that I'm an artist! BUT I'm still dealing in my head that being an artist and not wanting to make it my job is somehow making me less artist than others... I really think the word artist has a heavy weight and the way we are taught in school have an huge influence in our perception, seems that only those considered illuminati and genius can be called artists 👀 unlearning all this is important to finally accept us as artists, no matter what others may think and/or say. It all starts in us.
I think there’s this romanticization that only artists who put art above all else can be artists (like making it one’s job)—which is quite an outdated and patriarchal way of looking at things! We can shift the perception of who and what makes an artist, starting with accepting it for ourselves 💛
I love this post! I actually DO have a BFA but have always felt weird calling myself an artist. I was brought up in a working-class environment and I suspect there’s some clingingon beliefs about what that word means: Michelangelo or Picasso? Flaky? Arrogant? Selfish? I’ll let y’all know once I unpack it all. Probably by the time I’m 80. But really, writers write, artists make art, and photographers take pictures - if you’re doing any of that call yourself what you do! And thanks for making the world more beautiful and interesting.
So interesting Sara, makes me think how we never really fully arrive even after achieving! Fear of being perceived as arrogant or selfish is definitely part of it. The more there are of us who can boldly call ourselves artists, the more we’ll change that perception!
I share so many similarities with your list of reasons to not call myself an artist — I’m self taught, teen me couldn’t draw a stick figure to save her life, I don’t do art full time, and the list goes on. But somewhere along the way, through a series of lovely coincidences, I became an artist! It’s now an identity that’s very firmly a part of me.
Love love love this post! Thank you Carolyn! For the longest time I have identified as a writer, but a couple of weeks go I had a somewhat of an artistic meltdown (or creative identity crisis?!) and decided to abandon a novel manuscript I'd been working on since 2022. Letting go was hard (it felt like a failure) but it was the right thing to do. Then one evening my kid and I started making collages for fun, and I found myself making collage poems. I never thought mixing words and illustrations/pictures from magazines would bring me so much joy, but it does. That's when I realized there are no rules when it comes to art. There are no boxes and you don't have to create in silos. You can do what YOU want! You can contain multitudes! That's when I realized I was an artist.
Hi Michelle, so glad this post was timely for you! I relate to the pain of abandoning a novel, been there myself—know that the work you’ve done will always be there to return if you should desire to in the future, and you have grown so much by having written what you have even if it’s not the final form! I love crossing mediums and experimenting as an artist, and excited to see what unfolds for you in your continued discovery towards joy.
Thank you Carolyn for your kind words. To joyful art! :)
Oh so relatable! Thank you so much for sharing. I can tick almost all of your 'Every reason why I didn’t believe I could be an artist' list. I didn't start creating art until 2020-21. A few pieces here and there over the years but nothing consistent and nothing that ever made me think I could be an artist. And yet, here I am now calling myself an artist because I pushed away my fears and doubts and just started drawing and creating since it's something I love to do and have always wanted to do. No more fear – I am an artist!!!
I LOVE this so much -- especially as someone who also struggled to define myself as an artist for many of the same reasons you shared. And the cool thing is...a few years ago when I finally decided to say out loud "I'm a writer. I'm an artist. I'm a children's book maker," that's when things really started happening for me. People get nervous about labels (as you addressed so well), but I like to think of them as permission. I had to give myself permission. Once I did, it made all the difference. Anyway, love this post!
What a treasure to hear your story Rachel, and how much synchronicity started happening once you claimed your path 💛 Giving ourselves permission is everything!
I love this! I’ve had similar arguments with myself for years about being a scientist (I don’t have a PhD). But I’m leaning in to calling myself both a scientist and an artist and it feels pretty great.
Love that embrace of duality, Anna! You are indeed both!
This post is so important! I have a very similar list of all the reasons not to call myself an artist (including a failed foray into oil painting). I love the list of reasons TO call yourself an artist, and the hilariously absurd notion of a formal progression from Junior to Senior to VP Artist 😂
Thanks Kelcey! Curses to oil painting and a lifetime of seeing "oil on canvas" in every museum and thinking that is the be all, end all medium 😮💨 (though I would love to give oils a go sometime!)
Haha, yes and when I (briefly) took a few private art lessons, the teacher compared oil paint to poetry as the highest medium/form. And I was like, "welp, I'm a prose writer who will never master oils..."
Well then, may we have a blast with the “lowly” mediums 😂
I said this just yesterday and today I found you saying the same thing. Thank you for helping me confirm this. Well said.
I have a lot of the ideas that are labeled in your article. Not going to school, not drawing as a child, not being driven to do it as a young person. But I struggle even now with the driven part. I am not always driven to do art, I have to make myself. But I am always happy when I do...well, almost, a bad painting might take away some joy.
I started calling myself an artist when I decided I wanted to sell my art. So, I had to build a lot of confidence ahead of time. It helped that I had made it a project during 2020 so that I would keep busy. It also helped when I started really letting people see my work. Even having it as a background on zoom meetings. I got lots of compliments and then it got easier to call myself an artist.
Started sharing poetry with people about a year ago, finally decided to call myself a poet about 4 months ago. You’re right, taking that mantle onto myself does change my habits. I love being a poet! I also work in STEM and don’t make most of my money from art.
I like to think of myself as my own sugar daddy. I love the playful side of myself who finds himself writing a poem all of a sudden. You’re also right that doing the practice is so key, so I like to keep a little nursery of fledgling poems ready to be edited and polished whenever I’m in that whittling editing mood, which is so fun too.
Thanks for your post!
In a way, I feel luck was with me. Five weeks after I picked up a paintbrush, people began buying my art, and so I called myself an artist. I needed that validation and I got it fast. I have not turned away from my art Muse from that day, and she can be possessive and compulsive. It’s a wild ride, it’s been 2 years, I’m on for the long haul and I don’t know where she’s taking me. It doesn’t matter, I’m learning new things every day and I make art. It lights me up.
So… this is the second time, together with the last one about your reading rituals and practices, your article is - gladly- restacked by someone I follow on my page.
I loved already the other one but I don’t subscribe instantly to all publications, unless I read a couple and really love it, find one of my people and community in the author. I meet their Truth, their heart and their soul and there I am.
This second post lead this human right here 🙋🏻♀️ to subscribe 🥰🩷
I’d love to give a try also to what you proposed in the quick top note: I enter for a chance to get a try of one month.
As for the piece in itself, I felt seen and witnessed. As well as having much to say about how we truly share these types of uncertainty inside our beings, adding up to all of the ones we naturally face as humans in our own growing and becoming, in life here.
Specially in the societies, environments and families, stories we are born into.
But for those I want to restack this for other creatives and artists from all avenues to read it and start or continued to give themselves the titles their nature deserves through this encouragement.
Thank you kindly Alessandra, so glad to have you here and to see and witness each other in our uncertainties and uplift each other! I've given you the 1 month trial :)
Ohhh dear Carolyne, this means more than what you can imagine. Thank you truly for being so generous 🥺🙏🤍
Especially because of the moment I’m living right about now in my life, creating the one I was meant to live from 0. Living all of my true self in this world, like I never could. In the present while moving towards my future, going towards all of the dreams and vision of it I constantly have, while growing them. I started to share myself and so also about it just these recent days through my notes with our communities of human beings supporting and witnessing each other through our own unique journeys and path in our life, healing, growths, evolutions, becoming.
Finally having a confidence in it, I would have never thought as even a possibility in my life. And chose to finally post my own voice, writing… hopefully in this craziness surrounding me, doing it soon.
Thank you for giving me the possibility to dive into your own stories, work, art presented and created in your life with this try.
So excited to explore it all! I’m sure you will be source of inspirations and creation while I also continue to water and properly build my own creative practice
Ale
Well this was validating in an amazing way today. When I was born my mom was 43 and my dad was 50. I had three older sister, one 19, one 16, one 9. The two older had incredible music talent and their singing made me cry as a baby. But, I can not sing in tune and as I was growing up I had to suffer their barbs about my talent. The oldest sister till this day (she is 89) still sings in a choir every week. She is an incredible creative in music and art. She still paints. There was another sister two years after me. My mom was exhausted. There was never anything creative left for me. I did excel through school and got scholarships for university. I have had two incredible careers, one in organizational management in the luxury goods sphere (a definite uber creative vibe) and the second in not-for-profit funding. (lots of empathy learning). Now at 70 I have the time and means to create, the dream of my whole life; it was just squelched down. The extra bonus is I have 4 incredible grandchildren who are artists in their own right and citizens of the world. I get to say I am an artist and a writer even without selling anything, or publishing anything. All theses years I have been collecting and archiving ideas of what I love and know. I have a book or two and many creative art ideas.
Thanks for the validation.
I'm starting to tell people I'm a illustrator. Because only saying "I'm an artist" everyone has that question mark on their face. Because they don't know if I draw or make music 🤣
I love this post! And I wanna say specifically, I love the drawing of those trophies!! It's so cute and it makes a great point
This ❤ as well I have similar list and only last year I wrote online and admitted to myself that I'm an artist! BUT I'm still dealing in my head that being an artist and not wanting to make it my job is somehow making me less artist than others... I really think the word artist has a heavy weight and the way we are taught in school have an huge influence in our perception, seems that only those considered illuminati and genius can be called artists 👀 unlearning all this is important to finally accept us as artists, no matter what others may think and/or say. It all starts in us.
I think there’s this romanticization that only artists who put art above all else can be artists (like making it one’s job)—which is quite an outdated and patriarchal way of looking at things! We can shift the perception of who and what makes an artist, starting with accepting it for ourselves 💛
I love this post! I actually DO have a BFA but have always felt weird calling myself an artist. I was brought up in a working-class environment and I suspect there’s some clingingon beliefs about what that word means: Michelangelo or Picasso? Flaky? Arrogant? Selfish? I’ll let y’all know once I unpack it all. Probably by the time I’m 80. But really, writers write, artists make art, and photographers take pictures - if you’re doing any of that call yourself what you do! And thanks for making the world more beautiful and interesting.
So interesting Sara, makes me think how we never really fully arrive even after achieving! Fear of being perceived as arrogant or selfish is definitely part of it. The more there are of us who can boldly call ourselves artists, the more we’ll change that perception!
I share so many similarities with your list of reasons to not call myself an artist — I’m self taught, teen me couldn’t draw a stick figure to save her life, I don’t do art full time, and the list goes on. But somewhere along the way, through a series of lovely coincidences, I became an artist! It’s now an identity that’s very firmly a part of me.
Yes 👏 I love how the journey toward becoming an artist is made all the more interesting through these non-stereotypical pathways!