I wanted to be an artist when I was little. I tried to hold on to that dream but gradually over time two things began to eat away at my innocent goals.
First, the world kept telling me that art isn’t a real career; only people like doctors and lawyers make money; money is what I needed to have in order to really enjoy life; to be an artist I had to be amazing; someone else is always going to be better than me.
Second, my admiration for artists began to wane heavily as I encountered shams and soulless “artists” who were getting rich selling nothing more than their name. I saw artists who skillessly splatter paint on a canvas and sell it for millions. Artists who pay someone to wrap an island in pink plastic and garner acclaim that boggles the mind. Everyone was telling me that these artists are great, but when I looked at what they made it was quite clearly crap.
I felt like the emperor in The Emperor’s New Clothes; like maybe I was actually a fool for thinking Jackson Pollock was no more than an alcoholic con-artist with bad taste. I was too embarrassed to argue when someone would tell me Matisse is a “master”. Instead of questioning the world I began to question myself – and that was the root of the demise of my dream.
I found myself not wanting to be an artist anymore. For me the term “artist” had become linked with a sickening slather of self righteous pretentiousness; “if you don’t ‘get it’ then you’re obviously too dense to appreciate real art”.
It seems my dream had died.
The funny thing about dreams that come from your core is that they never truly die. My desire to be an artist went underground and changed names. My disgust was with the title and perceived image of an artist; I still wanted to make & create.
Fast forward to today, everything & nothing has changed. I still have a deep love/hate relationship with art and artists. But amazingly (ironically) I now make art for a living. I still can’t seem to bring myself to fully identify as an artist but some would call me that.
I make, create, invent, & try to make people think. I do things an artist does but I avoid the title. So I don’t know what I am but I know that I am happy!
