On Being an Artist (However You Got Here)

Artist.

It’s such a loaded little word, isn’t it, because it sounds like it should mean one thing, but it really doesn’t. It means something different depending on who’s saying it and how they hold it.

For some people, artist feels like something you earn, something official, something you step into once you’ve got the credentials or the exhibitions or the backing. Don’t get me wrong, having an art degree is awesome, learning your craft properly is a privilege. But the degree on its own doesn’t automatically make someone creative. Creativity isn’t a certificate, it isn’t something you’re handed. It’s something you practise. It’s how you notice things, how you think, how you keep coming back to making even when you’re not sure it’ll work.

And that’s why there isn’t one version of an artist. Some people are ‘self taught’ aka natural born creatives, pure instinct, no rulebook. Some people make art as a hobby, a joy, a release, something that belongs only to them. Some people squeeze it into evenings and weekends as a side hustle, slowly building something out of scraps of time.

Some people manage to support themselves fully from their work, and that deserves saying properly, because it’s not some dreamy, floaty existence. It’s hard graft, just like any other job. You’re creating, yes, but you’re also doing the admin, the selling, the showing up, the risk, the constant pushing forward. Making a living as a full time artist is work. Proper work.

And then there are people making absolutely unreal things who still won’t call themselves an artist at all. They’ll say “I just do a bit” or “I’m not a professional” as if the word belongs to someone else.

That’s the bit that always gets me, because being an artist isn’t one path or one background or one kind of person. It’s the fact you make things, you see the world differently, you keep coming back to it, you grow something out of nothing.

I keep thinking about something Tracey Emin said recently, comparing being an artist to gardening. That art is something you grow, messy and seasonal, and then suddenly one day there it is. Except it’s even stranger than a garden, because plants and flowers exist anyway… but art doesn’t. Art only exists because someone pulled it from their mind into the real world.

Artist is the title. The reasons are all over the place.

And thank god for that.

No beige. No gatekeeping. Just people making things because something in them needs to.

(And if you’re reading this as a local artist, a contemporary artist, a hobby artist, a self taught artist… or someone who hasn’t come out yet, you’re part of the creative community. Always.)