An artist to-morrow and an artist yesterday - but never and artist to-day

When I introduce myself, I say I am a teacher. I list painting and drawing as a hobby. But I never tell people I am an artist. Quite the contrary, I will deny any title that labels as me as such. But why? After all when I was in High School I toyed with the idea of being a painter by night and a teacher by day. I did go to art school, I spent a month painting in Paris, I have a studio in my apartment. So why do I furiously deny anyone who dare say I am an artist? I think being an artists is like being in love, either you are or you are not. It is a state of being. I don't "feel" like an artist, and I have not achieved anything as an artist...yet... Instead, I feel like a talented, creative, individual, on the cusp of what could be a great teaching career. Maybe tomorrow I might feel differently, maybe tomorrow I will be an artist. But certainly not today....

Braids

This is a sketch that is part of a series of drawings I have been mulling over secretly in the dead of night in a sketchbook I keep beneath my pillow. I don't know if it will ever come to fruition, or if this means I am slowly moving out of my current state of art alienation. I have not produced any of my own work in over a year for a lot of complicated reasons which I am still dealing with. But I wanted to share my drawing, maybe as a way for me to show that somewhere in side of me there is an artist biding her time...

Fog

And the sound of the rain
Against my windowpane
Is slowly, is slowly drivin' me insane, boy.
- Mary J. Blige,  I'm Going Down

Crisp

Nooo!!!

Fall

Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: John S
Flash: Off
Film: Kodot Verichrome

Good Morning

Childhood Relic

The Legitimacy of Painting

She said children love to paint because it brings legitimacy to their work. Painting connects them to that long artistic tradition with the likes of Picasso, van Gogh and Matisse. Is that why I have such a hard time letting go of oils as a medium? I was after all taught that great artists paint in oils. You cannot call yourself a painter if you do not paint in oils. Even the artists I most admire, call themselves illustrators, not artists or painters. Is it because they feel the same way? That because they use watercolor or ball point pen that they are not worthy of the term artist? And why do I continue to struggle with oils, knowing I could much better results in the other mediums I have learned and love?