| Thursday, October 08, 2009 | self improvement, photography, inspiration, creativity |
You are an artist
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Ever notice how people skirt around calling themselves artists, even if they draw or write regularly?
What's that about?
When I do it, I imagine a thick black line drawn between the aficionado and the "true" artist or writer.
Picasso, Hemmingway, these people are the real deal. I take photographs of fruit at farmers' markets and have a blog. Big difference.
But is it really?
Consider other titles we assume more easily. Like smoker. Is a smoker someone who has one cigarette each day? What about a whole pack? If you ask me, both are smokers. Either can explain what they enjoy about it, their favorite brand, and how it makes them feel.
When I co-led a writers' retreat earlier this year in Colorado, one of the most powerful exercises was when each person was asked to say, "I am a writer," aloud in front of the group. There was trepidation, tears and relief in saying those words.
Creativity in any form is very personal and sometimes emotional. To state openly that you're an artist requires confidence that what you create will meet others' approval, that you will not be ridiculed for making the claim, that you will live up to the assumed qualifications of the title. Out of fear most of us just avoid it.
In avoiding though we're denying a part of ourselves from being expressed and accepted. If we can't accept ourselves, how can anyone else?
Forgive the cliche, but art is a state of mind. It's beyond how often you compose a poem or sketch a portrait. It's how you see the world - the colors, the shapes, the interaction between people on and below the surface.
Notice the subtle ways you're already creative. I wrote out my grocery list with a colored pencil today. My friend likes to watch people at a bar and invent conversations they might be having. Whatever it is, embrace it.
I am an artist. And so are you.
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When I used to spend my time as a full time actor, I noticed the majority of my coleagues preferred to speak about the "craft" of acting, both because it seemed less pretentious, but also because it made it more accessible (i.e., acting isn't just for certain geniuses out there--it is about practicing a series of techniques that are equally accessible to everyone).
Now that I'm in the legal field, I've noticed a bizarre sort of equal, yet opposite parallel...ever since the birth of traditional law school (at Harvard via a fellow named Christopher Columbus Langdell in the late 19th century) the practice of law has been billed as a "science" by academics (as opposed to what it had previously been known as--a trade or vocation). The label change was essentially to bring a new level of cred to the profession, for various reasons--yet "lawyers" are still often thought of as ambulance-chasing opportunists all these years later.
So what's it all mean? I suppose if I had to sum all this up, I would say language is such a deeply personal thing, and words/labels can be so subject to manipulation--with all those complications, it's realy up to the idividual to determine what s/he feels comfortable with.
The use of labels is really more of an art than a science in the end!
While I am not yes comfortable calling myself a social worker, I am comfortable calling myself a Social Work Student or Future Therapist...
I like trying on different labels...it's one. I've always said I like labels...they tell me the high level qualifier so I can decide if I want to get to know more. We don't call it tomato, potato, green bean and carrot soup, we call it vegetable soup...I can read the ingredients to decide if I want to eat it or not.