Doubts, but Doing It Anyway.

Because I didn’t make art as a means to make a living, I thought calling myself an artist was a boughie sort of imposter syndrome.  My drawing talent has real limits (when I would ask my 7th-grade English/History students if I could draw something on the board for them to help illustrate a point I was trying to make, I would often be met with well-meaning groans of dismay :) and most of my training in mixed media art consists of hours of YouTube. 

As a teacher, and someone who tends to have a pretty concrete approach to things, I tend to go to the dictionary first when I’m trying to understand a word, a concept, or a state of being.  I’ve been trying to understand since I’ve been on my own artistic journey, which took on greater significance when I left my teaching job, moved to Minnesota with my husband and two daughters, and took up an art-based career full time(ish) (well, more full time then what I was doing before. Forward movement is the key: an object in motion stays in motion, and even if all I am doing is something minor towards a project—searching for images, writing lists, reading an online article about how to improve my abilities—eventually it contributes to a finished piece!