Last night at a party, after introductions and banter about professions, someone said to me, “I do art, but I’m not an artist.”
I cocked my head, curious. “But if you do art, doesn’t that make you an artist?”
She shrugged and said “maybe,” then we got interrupted, and I never got to find out what she meant.
But I woke up thinking about it. What makes someone an artist? Or, more accurately, what makes someone believe they are an artist?
An old ink drawing from my teenage years
It’s easy for me: I was always drawing as a kid, I majored in art in college and made a career out of it. My mom claimed the title and showed me what an artist’s life looked like, but even so, my path turned out very different from hers. I just spent 5 days in her world, visiting with her artist friends, who all have unique paths and lifestyles. I guess they all sell their work, or they try to—maybe that’s why they own the “artist” identity.
But what about those who don’t try to sell their work? Will Cather said, “Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers.” My former mother-in-law used to paint, sculpt, and draw, but almost never sold her art. Yet to her, being an artist was as sacred as being a nun. She did study art in college, so maybe that helped her own the role.
So, if you don’t go to school for art, and you don’t earn money from it, what makes you an artist? What if it’s just something you do for fun on the weekends? What if you yearn to create, and you take a class, and you love what comes out, but you still earn a living cleaning teeth?
"Empress Sisi," oil on canvas, private collection
Honestly, I think it’s intimidation. I have an MFA and I’ve been making money from art for 36 years, and yet I still dread the party question: “oh, you’re an artist? What kind of work do you do?” It conjures a vision of them standing in my studio, waiting for me to present canvases to their critical eyes. I usually fall back on the Disney resumé, which triggers instant admiration.
That way I don’t have to meander through a sentence like, “well, I paint in oil, mostly expressionism I guess, weaving through realism and abstraction into a deep place inside where I mine conflicts and memories and hopefully shine light into a new place, and if a viewer is moved to tears, I know I struck gold.”
"Butterfly Blue," oil on canvas, 2014-ish
See, I think the urge to paint/draw/sculpt/create comes from a murky, confusing place. It’s powerful and frightening. It comes from within but also from the things we see and experience, that talk to us—shout, sometimes—with their compelling stories. Whether the images are light and easy or dark and confrontational, they beckon us to create them. How do you explain that in one line at a party?
Try saying it: “I am an artist.” What does that feel like?
Art Heals
My mother just gifted me her personalized, signed copy of Ben Shahn's 1963 book "Love and Joy About Letters." I learned a lot about his work from my advisor in college, Frances Pohl, who happened to be a Shahn expert. She wrote a book about him. Shahn was considered part of the Social Realist movement of the early to mid twentieth century. His work was often intensely political, emotional, confrontational.
I find his work comforting. Maybe because he wasn't afraid to tell the truth about hard things. He often earned money from commercial commissions, and pursued the work he felt passionate about. I couldn't find a website dedicated to him, but if you google his name, you can see the wide range of his art.
A panel from the book
With love and light,
Maggie
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