This post was inspired by the latest happenings in my illustration hobby. After spending some time reflecting about what I have accomplished so far and what experiences it has led me to discover, I came up with six words that sums it all up.
I know this blog isn’t going to get a lot of readers but I’m publishing it anyway because fuck you I’m an artist. Screw this world and the meaning that lies in its turbulence. There is no absolute meaning to it but the meaning one would be willing to believe.
With that in mind, I think everyone holds their own standards on who they will acknowledge as an artist or not.
As much as we want to be objective about judging someone based on fixed criteria, it’s not a clean cut when the subject of art is involved. Should we be judging someone based on their lifestyle? What they do with their works? How their works came to be? The purpose of their works? And the list of questions can go on but the bottom line is that an individual or a group arbitrarily imposes there qualifications.
You’re not an artist if nobody acknowledges you as one. Is this the absolute truth? I don’t know. We’ve all been programmed to work with the labels ascribed to us by the society we are in. Maybe I should wear a beret and have my clothing paint stained? Keep a mini gallery at home? Or talk about revolutionary art? Or change my form of media used into something traditional just to fit into the damn stereotype.
When was the last time you felt that you had to prove yourself to anyone else that your craft is art and you are the craftsman?
Do you have to earn from your works to be an artist?
Do you have to have a minimum fee set to be called a professional artist?
Do you need to be paid all the time to be an artist?
Do you need to have a certain number of years of study to qualify as an artist?
Do you need that fancy certificate to be an artist?
Do you need to need to be mentored by someone to be an artist?
Do you have to have a degree or be acknowledged by another party to be an artist?
Do you have to have a specific media to express your craft?
Do you need to consult another party first before creating your works so that the output be called art?
Do you have to spend a lot of time making public relations for constant validation of your status as an artist?
Do you have to make it known to many that what you do is art and you are an artist?
I find it ridiculous to be minding all these things when I just want to make something because I want to. But who am I to say something against the status quo when I don't have a degree to show about it right?
Because any respectable artist would not do so and so…
Because real artists have studied so and so…
Because real artists have spent years perfecting so and so…
Because real artists live off from their works…
Because real artists have a guild membership...
Because real artists are revolutionary thinkers…
Because real artists create works that make you feel something…
Does the value of art become directly proportional to the price tag or the credentials of the person that created them? I don’t think cavemen minded these social constructs when they were expressing themselves through cave painting.
I don’t have the heart to tell to someone studying art that they can’t call themselves artists until they get a certificate or make a living out of their art works. I don’t have a heart to tell someone that worked a art piece that what they made isn’t art unless it makes their audience feel something because it has to.
I’ve been giving away my pencil portraits, doodles, painted murals, and became a part time cartoonist for a local newspaper. Everything about my works were self taught because I want to commit to it. I do get paid occasionally but not enough to make a living out of it. I don't need to make a living out of it.
I even threw out my old doodle portfolio out of frustration that pointilism, minimalist art style, and just paper and gel pen will never make me see what I do is art. On an unrelated note, that doodle portfolio ended up on a tattoo artists hands and they used my designs. I guess they are the real artist because they made a living out of my trash.
But I guess I need to spend some years learning in a structured institution and get that Art Degree to be accepted as a real artist? If that’s the reality I have to accept, then I suppose I’ll just be calling myself a fake artist from now on. The elites can keep their standards and we can go our separate merry ways because fuck them I’m a fake artist. Just strengthens my conviction
It no longer bothers me to think what I create isn’t art. I’ll earn from what I create because I enjoy doing it and not because I’m pressured to create to put food on the table or because I had a certificate to show for it.