I often find myself questioning my skills and ability as an artist. It’s funny how people that surround you see your work and praise your gift of being an Artist not knowing the struggles that go along with being an Artist; the mental challenges and the emotional down slopes for every piece that is not completed and not to mention that they tend to overlook the difficulties of being noticed in this arena.
An Artist is always looked at in a strange light, your worked is criticized and measured with this imaginary score board in peoples mind. What are they comparing you to? Why do I need to explain all these details in my work? If they don’t get, they’ll never get. Producing art or your craft is very personal; it is letting your guard down for that moment and an explosion of emotions erupt onto your media and at times it can be very challenging moment. It sucks to be an artist at times, you walk around with this persona like you have it together and that you are so skilled. Then, you crash, you feel like you will never make it, that your work is not worthy and you have been defeated by those eyes that surround you.
All throughout history we have read about our favorite artist: may it be a painter, a musical artist or any other creative genius of their challenges of being accepted and in trying to express their mental imagery and plenty of them go unnoticed until their unfortunate death, then and only then is when they are looked upon as a great artist. These Vincent Van Gogh’s, these Bach’s and so many others that we can mention.
It really does not matter what your creative outlet or your craft is, it might be: art, music, writing, cooking, designing…we have all been there, what a crappy feeling when you have all these ideas and feelings and anxiety starts kicking in because you just can’t get it out; that vision, that tune, that creativity and then, it sets in…you question yourself as an artist. Are you really an artist? Are you really as talented as you have been told? Could you really recreate or exceed your finest pieces again? It is funny how we tend to kick ourselves because we hold our environment, our emotional state and countless other reasons for not being able to focus and produce the perfect one and along the way we forget that our greatest creation is our biggest eruption of emotion.
Today was one of those days for me but I decided to kick anxiety to the curb and work on tidbits of techniques. I did some pencil sketching and got some rough ideas on paper. Practiced on drawing techniques; worked on my retro style painting for my laundry room and of course I had to do some baking – I will post my latest recipe shortly. I just wish that I had more of these days that I take a breath and try to take what I have at the moment and grow from it instead of trying to shoot for that big score. To be an artist is to practice that craft and refine your skills and when that inspiration comes, the eruption of emotion that creates these amazing pieces, you are ready and it will come naturally. That’s why we are called an” Artist”… We create one of kind masterpieces never to be recreated again because we cannot recreate that emotional state we were in, it becomes a documentation of our eruption of sadness, happiness or other feelings we had at that moment. So, let’s continue on as an “Artist”.
Art by Isabel 