There is a myth about being an artist, or at least there used to be. Historically, the status of the artist has gone basically from craftsman, to professional, to individual genius, to anyone with a creative impulse. Most recently, it seems the artist is back to being constructed as a new and improved professional - expected to be educated, trained, with multiple degrees and advanced credentials, with lots of entrepreneurial spirit and marketing savvy. Aspiring to be an artist has become about getting in to the right school, earning the right degree, producing a "coherent", "consistent" body of work, and then hawking it in the right way to the right people, ie. those people with the power to anoint you as a "real" artist, worthy of belonging to the profession. It seems pretty straight-forward really, almost reassuring. If you want to be an artist, here is the path, here is the career plan. Best of luck.
Having briefly had another profession before becoming an artist, I am fascinated by this process of becoming, this quest to earn a new identity, in this case the identity of an artist. Even describing the act of making art seems fraught with difficulties. When does it begin? Do all nascent efforts qualify as the "making" of art, the act of "creating"? What does it mean to "pursue" art? Do you pursue it like a child chasing after a runaway puppy in a field of flowers? Or is the pursuit more treacherous, more akin to a soldier stalking an elusive target through muddy, blood-soaked minefields, doomed to be annihilated at any moment? Is the pursuit never-ending, or is there a moment when you can declare that you've caught it, that you've conquered it, that from now on, art somehow belongs to you.
In Joe Fig's book, "Inside the Painter's Studio", the first question he asks each of the artists interviewed is when they considered themselves to be a "professional artist". Each artist talks around the question, acknowledging that such a milestone is probably considered objectively to be when they were first able to pay their bills from the proceeds of their artwork alone. But most seem uncomfortable or unsatisfied with that assessment. They each have a very individual way of determining when they began to identify themselves as an artist, with or without the added designation of "professional". Throughout each interview, the thing that quietly emerges is the idea that art is not a job, not a career, not even really a pursuit. It is a life. Each of the artists expresses a patient commitment to a daily process that persists in the face of the uncontrollable and unpredictable vicissitudes of the art market and of life, whether others may perceive it as their "career" or not.
Perhaps this is obvious to many artists out there. They don't question the need to make art, they have identified themselves as artists since they were first given a crayon, and they experience the making of art as second-nature. For me, that is not the case - perhaps more so because I left a different career to do this, so it has seemed only natural to pursue this new venture with a similar attitude to "success". It has taken time for me to transition from my old identity to this one as artist. It has been a process of shedding my old self, habits and expectations, and slowly slipping into a new skin, exploring its capabilities, and even discovering what may be a few special super-powers.
I think an artist today is simultaneously a craftsman, a professional, a genius, and a shmo with a crayon. I think at different times, at different stages, and to different extents, I am one, or some, or all of those things. And I see that finally I am beginning to cross the threshold of becoming in to being.
Having briefly had another profession before becoming an artist, I am fascinated by this process of becoming, this quest to earn a new identity, in this case the identity of an artist. Even describing the act of making art seems fraught with difficulties. When does it begin? Do all nascent efforts qualify as the "making" of art, the act of "creating"? What does it mean to "pursue" art? Do you pursue it like a child chasing after a runaway puppy in a field of flowers? Or is the pursuit more treacherous, more akin to a soldier stalking an elusive target through muddy, blood-soaked minefields, doomed to be annihilated at any moment? Is the pursuit never-ending, or is there a moment when you can declare that you've caught it, that you've conquered it, that from now on, art somehow belongs to you.
In Joe Fig's book, "Inside the Painter's Studio", the first question he asks each of the artists interviewed is when they considered themselves to be a "professional artist". Each artist talks around the question, acknowledging that such a milestone is probably considered objectively to be when they were first able to pay their bills from the proceeds of their artwork alone. But most seem uncomfortable or unsatisfied with that assessment. They each have a very individual way of determining when they began to identify themselves as an artist, with or without the added designation of "professional". Throughout each interview, the thing that quietly emerges is the idea that art is not a job, not a career, not even really a pursuit. It is a life. Each of the artists expresses a patient commitment to a daily process that persists in the face of the uncontrollable and unpredictable vicissitudes of the art market and of life, whether others may perceive it as their "career" or not.
Perhaps this is obvious to many artists out there. They don't question the need to make art, they have identified themselves as artists since they were first given a crayon, and they experience the making of art as second-nature. For me, that is not the case - perhaps more so because I left a different career to do this, so it has seemed only natural to pursue this new venture with a similar attitude to "success". It has taken time for me to transition from my old identity to this one as artist. It has been a process of shedding my old self, habits and expectations, and slowly slipping into a new skin, exploring its capabilities, and even discovering what may be a few special super-powers.
I think an artist today is simultaneously a craftsman, a professional, a genius, and a shmo with a crayon. I think at different times, at different stages, and to different extents, I am one, or some, or all of those things. And I see that finally I am beginning to cross the threshold of becoming in to being.