-2015
It has really only been in the last year that I have fully embraced the title of artist. Previously, I’d break it down to writer and/or photographer (depending on which stage of “I quit!” I was in). But never artist.
I pictured an artist as someone who paints or draws or sculpts or molds. Never someone who takes pictures or puts down words. When I dressed up as an eccentric artist for Halloween several years ago, some of the comments I received were, “But you don’t paint” and “You can’t even draw.” Let us set aside the whole point of Halloween and dressing up as anything you like to address those statements alone.
By its very definition, artist means, “a person who produces works in any of the arts that are primarily subject to aesthetic criteria.” {Dictionary.com}
Aesthetic? “relating to the philosophy of aesthetics; concerned with notions such as the beautiful and the ugly.” {Dictionary.com}
How does writing and photography not also fit?
All the same, I never saw it myself, so I can forgive anyone else who wonders. Yet, I believe every act of creation, whether it be a book or a piece of paper with doodles, is art. Something created where nothing was.
That’s what I do. I create. I arrange words where a painter might arrange colors. I seek light and composition where a sculptor might twist clay. We all see what could be and then make it, swaying along to the music that is creativity.
Sometimes I hear the call to try something new. I feel a stirring to branch out, or to change something in color to deep blacks and whites. Sometimes words call out to me in whispers of poetry, begging release. And sometimes a whole new medium asks me to just play, give it a try, have fun, no pressure.
So I swing by the crafty section in the store and grab the first thing I see that winks at me, flirting for the chance of meeting and seeing if we could connect. Watercolors this time, the kind packaged for kids, with its tiny paintbrush and no instructions other than how to get the paints out of the clothes they will inevitably find themselves bound to. I bring them home and set them out and wait for the inspiration.
The truth is, when it isn’t your regular medium, the inspiration may only come as a gentle call: “Let’s play.”
Several months ago, I bought a larger art journal. I am not by nature a scrapbooker, despite my photography and absolute love of story-telling, but I felt called to its wide, thick pages. I felt I would do something with it involving pictures, but without a clue, I simply sat it on my bookshelf and waited. It was this journal that I pulled out, ready to add to its stark white pages, ready to play, ready to just practice art.
I had already written hard words for the day, and blogged, and processed pictures for business, and cleaned the kitchen. I wasn’t bored, but rather I was feeling a need to delve into something new and beautiful. And really, I just wanted to prove to a part of my negative brain that I could make art and it didn’t need to be sell-worthy or loved by ANYONE. I just needed to practice, to get outside of my head of “make it perfect!” and just swish colors together until I felt it was finished.
That’s all. A half hour spent swirling and dipping the tiny, cheap paintbrush into color, sometimes not sure at all which color I’d get (Oh, that’s orange, not red at all!), all for the sake of art – just practice. Just nurturing that side of me. Just taking care of ME in the way that I needed to in that moment, in the middle of work, in the middle of life.
The end result is by far not what anyone would classify as brilliant art. But I love it. Because it’s a reflection of my heart, the way I see the world, all colorful and bright and beautiful, even in the midst of hard things, even in the middle of clouds that turn everything to grey, even in the middle of continued healing. The colors speak to me in a swirl of happy, a reminder to keep living this beautiful life, to keep hoping in the best of people, to stay open to the possibilities of possibility.
Creating for the mere sake of creativity is one of the most nurturing things I can do for myself. Practicing art is permission to seek, to experiment, to listen, to be still, to journey onward. It is good for my soul, for my heart, for my life in the day to day hustle that is keeping up with breathing. When I write, when I take photos, when I experiment, when I paint, when I see, I am reminded to live, to press on fully and as brilliantly as I can.
My youngest is an artist. I am not an artist but it has been so interesting to watch/observe her. She happens to be very talented in drawing as well as photography but it is not really about that. It is her personality and the way she sees the world. I don’t think she realizes how good she is at photography because she doesn’t seem that interested in it. But that is where I see the artist in her really come out. She will sometimes take my Nikon camera outside and just take pictures. The camera has the ability to operate manually or just point and shoot. She only uses the point and shoot – including the up close option (I don’t even know what it is called – lol). When she does this I get to see the world through her eyes. She occasionally will take a picture of a beautiful flower but usually it is of the wilting brown flower. Or she will take a picture of a leaf that has some sort of insect damage on it. It makes a person see the beauty in these things. She loves taking pictures of bugs doing their bug things. I think once she got a picture of a spider attacking a fly. It is so hard for me to explain that seeing her pictures is like me getting a glimpse inside of her. She sees things that the rest of the world would pass by. I don’t feel this way about most photographs I see but she’s got that special something. And I know it is because she is an artist. Like I said, I am not an artist but I have so much enjoyed being part of it through her. I am having so much trouble putting into words how I can see some aspect of her personality and know it is because she is an artist. I guess the way I am relating it to your post is that I don’t feel it is about talent or the medium, it’s just something about how the person sees the world. The people who you take pictures of get a glimpse inside of you. They get to see the beauty in themselves that you see. If you ever feel sensitive to people’s judgement I bet it is because you have shown them that part of you. It’s actually quite courageous to share that. I don’t think it’s that way for a person that is not an artist.
So, I’m just seeing your comment because it wasn’t emailed to me. Psh.
I love every word. I also love hearing your thoughts on your girl. I like how you can see a side that maybe we don’t see ourselves.