For many years when someone would ask me if I was an artist or a writer I would quickly tell them no. These days when someone asks me the same question I answer “I am, if we all are.” Here is why.
I was seven years old when I sat at the very old type writer that my mother had. I was not strong enough to press the keys down with a single finger so I used my middle finger on top of my index finger to accomplish the task. Afterwards it took many years for me to break the habit of typing with my middle finger crossed over my pointer. I typed out that first story painstakingly for two weeks. When all twenty pages were typed out on both sides of ruled paper torn from a note book I was incredibly proud of myself and my hands ached from the effort I had put into it..
I showed my Daddy my work and he looked it over rather quickly, he did not read it. The truth was my Dad was close to illiterate and to read my little misspelled, hacked up novel would have been a terrible challenge for him. But he was kind about it. My Daddy always seemed to appreciate things that I had a passion for although he did not understand it. I told him then and there that I wanted to be a writer.
Daddy was wise in his own way and he told me kindly that it was a nice hobby but that it’s hard to be a writer and pay the bills. He was right of course, about the money making challenges of being a writer. However, what I wish he had said was that ‘You already are a writer’. Because I was.
The same scenario played out later when I was a young teenager. I had tried to put together an art project made from Forrest scraps and some water colors a friend had loaned me. I showed my little brother and being the honest sort, he told me it was pretty crappy. I told him that I wanted to be an artist. Like my Daddy, my brother misunderstood and told me that I needed to be really really talented to do that. He saw the value of art in dollar signs and since I would never get paid to glue pine cones and sticks on a piece of paper, in his eyes I was not an artist. However, I was.
This is why for so many years when someone would ask me if I was a writer or an artist, I would answer no. I did not make money with these passions so they were just silly hobbies. It seemed that if I claimed I was an artist, then I was just being a drama queen, after all, I was just an ol’ Hillbillies daughter with very little ‘learnin’. The word ‘artist’ seemed to carry a high faluten tone that was filled with expectation and unattainable skill. I carried that thought process with me for a long time.
I was nearly thirty when I really began to understand myself. I broke free from some toxic beliefs I had absorbed as a child about how to love myself and others. I began to see a clear image of the person I wanted to be. By the time I was thirty I was happily surprised to find that the sort of person I wanted to be, for the most part was already there. It was more a matter of getting rid of undesirable qualities rather than building new positive ones. I was already an artist, a writer, a fighter, a poet, a gypsy, and a good friend. But, I needed to shed some pretty heavy garbage I was hauling around with me. I was very untrusting, suspicious, self destructive, fearful, angry and most encompassing I was an alcoholic.
With enormous effort from myself and support from awesome people I began scrubbing away the negative things and uncovering the good. I stopped listening to echoes from the past that kept telling me what I wasn’t. I started telling myself what I am.
I chat with lots of people about art of all sorts. Almost all of these good natured folks will quickly tell me that they can’t paint, can’t write, can’t cook, can’t carry a tune in a bucket and so on. Well I try real hard not to say it to their faces, but that is a bunch of hog wash and bologna. Or perhaps I should clarify what I am talking about when I talk about art. What do you think of when you hear the word art? A painting? A sculpture? How about the way you gesture when you speak, almost like your hands are dancing? Or the way you tell me about someone you know and despite the fact that I have never met them, by the end, I see them in my mind like I have. How about the way you plant flowers in neat patterned rows or perhaps haphazardly, lighting up your garden? The way you protect and defend someone you love? I hate to agree with anything Lady Gaga says but she nailed it when she said “Life is art all the time”.
It feels risky to shed off the weight of the “I can’ts” and the “I’m not’s”. It feels like losing a big heavy coat you have worn for a long time. At first you are afraid that you will be naked, freeze to death with out it. But it turns out, that heavy coat suffocates and hides what lies beneath. Everyone is an artist in some way. All of you are writers, even if only of your own adventurous life story. Remove the words Artist and Writer from the pedestal your imagination has put them on. You don’t have to make money doing it, or just ooze with talent. Art, real art is not about any of that. It satisfies something within yourself. Art is no puppet to the masses, it dances for no one but itself.
I see beautiful things, things worthy of painting, worthy of writing about when I see you. I won’t try to force you to believe that underneath your self doubt you are amazing, that is a seldom found path you must discover and walk yourself. But when you so kindly tell me that I am an artist you will now understand why I say “Yes, I am an artist, but only if we all are.”
G.R.
Geri Rene 