How to Know if You are an Artist

So you think you might be creative? 

Why?

Probably because you take photographs when the golden light shines through (at 4pm lately too), you draw eyes and lips on the corner of your pages, you sing songs only you know, you sing charting songs in a way they’ve never been sung before, when you feel something intense you write down your feelings in your notes app, when you’re bored you bake or make things, you alter thrifted clothes, you play with paint on the weekend, you surprise people in group projects, you’ve always wanted to try your hand at ceramics, you have dreams in colour, you plate your food just so….

You know what it sounds like to me? It sounds like you’re an artist.

Did that make you feel something? Did you look around to make sure I wasn’t talking to someone behind you? Or did it make you feel a little more seen?

I’ve been on my own creative journey through life, but more potently since 2016, and I have always experienced this weird uncertainty and discomfort around giving a title to what I do with my time and energy.

Am I a writer? I guess...I write a lot, both for pleasure and for work but it doesn’t feel like being a writer. Am I a poet? I mean…...sure. I write things that I call poems, some of them are just fragments. But would I call myself a poet? Probably only when I’m alone. Am I an artist then? Oh, I don’t know about that one. That’s a very big thing to be. An ARTist. Someone who makes art. Do I make art? 

This is just an example of what the investigation into my identity as a creative feels like. You see that word? Creative. I use that instead. Why? Because it feels less noble. It garners fewer expectations. It’s vague but clear. I create things, I think creatively, I have creative ideas, and I probably know when and why art/design looks just right. But sometimes I feel like calling myself  a creative sells me a little short. In my mind, me as the Creative is hiding from something from others. I am hiding from the light and their eyes because I don’t want them to see me for what I truly feel like I am…

A fraud.

Okay here we go. We are getting somewhere.

Maybe we don’t call ourselves artists, even though we spend so much conscious and unconscious energy creating art out of everything because the title feels undeserving. 

What IS an artist? 

Most of the dictionary definitions express artists as pursuers of artistic crafts like writing, painting, sculpture, etc. They also tend to mention that these pursuits can be a job or a hobby. All that matters is that they make art, and art is an expression of creative skill and imagination.

So by this logic, I’m sure many of you do things in your life that can be considered art, ergo you are an artist. 

But it doesn’t always feel that way, does it? 

I think we actually express ourselves creatively in so many ways on a regular basis that we forget they are creative at all. Things like trying a new makeup look to create an illusion or design, getting excited to try a new recipe and then taking the best picture possible to capture our creation, extra time spent styling our outfits or our surroundings. These are just regular everyday art pieces we create without consciously trying. And there’s even more, our lives are essentially galleries of spontaneous art that comes from life by nature of just living. 

So we are born artists now? That might be true but it doesn’t make me feel like an artist as an individual. It just reassures me that I have the potential to be even more of an artist if I wanted to.

Art is in the individual

If everything is art then nothing is art. There has to be a level of conscious intention to transform a “thing” into art. You could pour a bowl of cereal, essentially making something, but wouldn’t call that art. But if you made yourself a bowl of chosen grains, granolas, and ingredients and put it all together in a way that pleased you most, I’d call that art in a bowl. 

Because we produce and create on a regular basis we forget that we can infuse our work with the magic of intention, expression, and imagination. And what that can do. This piece of ourselves is the missing piece of the puzzle. It completes the artist. 

The artist is not in you, it is you. 

I challenge you to create with intention this week. Add an extra level of imagination and care to something and see how you can elevate the ordinary into extraordinary space. Give it meaning. Turn it into a story. Give colours names and flavours personalities. Create deeply and see what you produce. I want to see what you come up with. I want to see the art of you.

If you are comfortable sharing your artistic creation feel free to send me an email syrahkai@gmail.com or share on social media and tag me @syrah.kai and use the hashtag #syrahkai #innerartistchallenge