I am an artist!

This thread came up in one of my Yahoo groups. I thought I would post my response here.

It took me awhile before I began to call myself an artist. I am not sure when that was. I don't think I did until I began to feel it. I was doing art before I began to feel it. I knew I was doing it because I was learning how to do it. I was performing the steps and learning the techniques but did not feel like I was an artist. I felt like an artist when I knew what I was doing and began to "feel" each piece instead of just doing the techniques. I don't know exactly when that was. I started looking at my pieces differently. I stopped filling it with embellishments and started looking at it to see what I "felt" it needed. At that point, I was an artist.

Like I tell my kids, just because you look up a definition in a dictionary, you don't necessarily know the meaning of a word. You are not an artist just because you went to school to become one. You have to live it, become it, experience it. That is what I try to do with my kids in the classroom. Yeah, we do that with our vocabulary words, when we have the time. Beats looking it up in the dictionary.

I think you are an artist, if you feel it. You are not one because you can paste something together 1-2-3 onto an ATC. Do you live the life of an artist? Do you hoard pieces of stuff that means nothing to other people? Do you stuff rusty washers and nails into your pockets for that perfect project? Do you bead instead of sleep? You are an artist that is bitterly lacking sleep.

To the woman who was rejected from the Yahoo group. I have owned many Yahoo groups. The only reason I have ever rejected a member is because I have thought they were a spammer or a self-promoter. I have never rejected someone who I have thought to be an artist. It is not for me to judge. If you are going to exclude someone, then the group should be private and be by invitation only. We deal with enough rejection on a daily basis. You probably do not want to be part of that group anyway. I have left many Yahoo groups because I did not feel part of that community. We do not all fit in all places. We feel at home where we feel at home. I lurk in several groups because I feel comfortable.

Awhile back, I was rejected by someone who was supposedly a "big name" to be in a round robin because she said my art was not good enough. She had the nerve to email me that when I wrote her asking her if I made it into the RR or not. She did not bother to tell me whether I had made it in or not. I had to email her several times before she made the "time" to respond. Well, it was her loss. I have moved on. I did not let it get me down. I have to tell you that you don't see her name anywhere any more. I guess she wasn't such a big name after all. My satisfaction comes from my own success in the swaps and round robins that I have participated in and hosted since that time.

Yeah, I am an artist. Thanks for bringing up the subject.