I’m Not an Artist
A lot of times all it means to be an artist is to show up and do something that translates your experience into a form someone else can relate to.
Most people don’t do it, because it requires action driven by intentionality. It’s hard work to fight against the current, and put yourself out there. Mentally, more than physically usually. To be vulnerable and share a piece of yourself from deep down in your core, masked, hidden, suppressed. To wrestle with it and try to make some sense of it. Or even just to see it for what it truly is. One way or another, to say “Look at me” and then have to contend with receiving feedback from the world in various forms afterwards.
Photography, writing, painting, singing, dancing, playing an instrument, making people laugh, satisfying their hunger, soothing their souls. There are countless mediums at our disposal with which to communicate these pieces of ourselves, and infinite possibility to create new ones as new tools and ways of thinking evolve.
We all have the potential to be an artist. It’s just a matter of doing it.
(Damn, Nike’s slogan would have worked more effectively there at the end)