For a very long time, in fact for most of my childhood, I would cringe when people called me an "artist". Not because I had a negative correlation with the term, but rather because I had long admired greater artists whose works wowed people across the world. Their works were breath-taking, inspiring, and my mediocre sketches and doodles could never possibly compare.
But the main reason for this was not because I was not, per say, an artist. It was because my definition of artist was incorrect. I had long thought that only masters could be true artists. That anyone who said "You're a great artist!" to me was only being gracious. That they really should have said "You're good at drawing". Now I realize the truth, however. I do not need to be a master to be an artist. I just need to be someone who tells stories through what they create. I'm not particularly fantastic at that, either, but when I put my heart into a piece that is when it truly becomes art. And, failing that definition of artist, I suppose I could also go with "Artist in Training". I haven't learned everything the subject can encompass quite yet (has anyone, really?), so any lessons I learn I keep and hold to heart. Almost any new piece teaches me a new lesson, too, so I certainly do a lot of learning. Amiria Robinson's article, "The Top 10 Mistakes Made by Art Students", is an important piece to consider when talking about art class and just art in general. Every artist is different, will tell a different story, but there are instinctual habits we all fall back on from time to time. These are all things to avoid, and there are quite a few. My biggest mistake is likely underestimating art. I have always known that artists work incredibly hard, and that art is not an easy subject. But just how extensive it is, I really didn't understand until now. Especially since I have never created pieces on the scale that I do in our class. It takes intense concentration, and there are plenty of days I simply do not have the inspiration to work. Even then, I must continue, in order to preserve our schedule and meet deadlines. This could also, perhaps, apply to procrastination, although it is less about doing nothing and more about having too much to do. Perhaps another, more deadly problem to me is the section about continuously restarting a piece. Now I don't particularly restart a lot of pieces, but it takes a great amount of drive not to toss a piece that I really don't like instead of continuing to work on it. I spend far too much time staring at my pieces wondering what I could do better and simply not finding an answer. But that is when one seeks to experiment. Trying new things doesn't always end in success, but more often than not a new skill can be expressed through an old piece that was initially going to be tossed. One of the last points I wanted to call attention to in my work is presentation. There are several pieces in this gallery that I really must rephotograph, as their presentations are less than satisfactory compared to what the actual piece looks like. If I take more time and care on focusing on how I photograph these pieces, they will look a lot better-- and represent my work far better. The acrylic painting of the bell is the most urgent of these rephotographs, as the glare of the light simply does not do justice to the shades I tried to highlight. So I leave you on this: being an artist is about what you put into a work, and not what you theoretically "get" out of it. If an audience can look at your piece, and truly feel something, (whether it is what you intended them to feel or not) then you have created art.
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AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
May 2016
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