Self-Introduction (You were never that good)

I have been trying for a long time to be, you know, a serious artist. It’s not going well. I’m not even sure which of those two words is a worse description of me. I mean, I am not an artist, and I am certainly not serious.

I’ll probably focus on the art thing first. Being serious sounds dumb.

Anyway, when I say a long time, I mean that. A long time. Now I have come to the level of faking my artistry and seriousness that I have a website.

You may have heard of it. You are currently looking at it.

And as much as I am a huge ball of insecurity and imposter syndrome as I type this, I genuinely think it’s a good thing. Partly because it’s a step in the right direction, and partly because of this thing that happened this week (see picture).

I wanted to start this paragraph with “the problem is…,” but then I realized that I would be implying that there was only one problem. There are many. One of the several problems that I will be highlighting in this particular post is that I have this view of myself as an artist in the past. I felt like I used to be the artist I want to be right now.

I’ve had to do a lot of things to make my life work. I moved to another country. I got married. I moved back to my own country. I went back to school. I got my teaching credential. I got my Masters degree. In all the things that I got, I missed the one thing that I didn’t get. I didn’t get better at art. I had to put it down.

When I cam back to art, I found that I was deeply disappointed with what I could do. Dissatisfaction is the constant companion of the creative, but this felt like more. I regretted leaving my art, and felt like I lost something huge that I may never recover. Why can’t I create now, to the level I was at back then?

I used to be a good artist.

At least that’s how I remembered it.

So anyway, fast forward about a year and a half. I’ve had this incredible opportunity to combine my love for the subject I teach (science) and the arts by collaborating with my local library to create a display to teach kids about the water cycle. I have also created a YouTube channel which, while not insanely popular, is actually going much better than I thought.

Time for a website.

But I’m going to need lots of pictures. People don’t come to an illustrator’s website just to read super long blog posts about his personal life.

Pretend I didn’t say that.

I spent the last couple of evenings thumbing through my old sketchbooks and loose illustrations. I’ve kept everything from the last 10 years, which is about when I started taking art seriously. I am going to have so much content from these books. So much content that you guys are just going to be sick of it! You’ll beg me to stop making content. You’ll just beg for it to end.

Much like this blog post, that activity did not end up going how I thought it would.

Most of the important things I learn in life, I have learned by accident. I was in no way attempting to learn valuable life lessons. I was neither attempting to improve my self image nor my character as I was flipping through those sketchbooks. I was hunting for gold! But the funny thing is, as I was scrolling past the last 10 years of art, a very profound thought came rushing to the surface of that wet sponge of grey matter occupying my skull.

Oh. Actually, I suck.

Looking back at the art throughout the years, the things that I was so sure were so good, and worthy, and better than the absolute crap I was making now, I found not hidden gold. No buried treasure. Mostly as few decent ideas that were pretty badly done. I actually don’t have very many pictures to share.

Isn’t that wonderful?

I didn’t change, I didn’t lose my edge. I never had one to begin with. I am still constantly building something good, and I was never that good to begin with. It feels as though a terrible 10 year weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I am free to continue to be a bit of a disappointment to myself, because I still have a long way to go.

Welcome to my website. We are going to have fun here 🙂