I never wanted to be who I was – that’s about the gist of it, but life does have a way of throwing a curveball at ya’ once and a while, and when it comes, you’se got to take a swing at it, or you’ll have just another unknown coming at you, and it will probably be another curveball, and then another, and another, and so on. Opportunity is like that, persistent, tenacious even, and it doesn’t only come once!

Sure, some years might pass while I was distracted by the needs of making money, not thinking money could be made from craft, but pen and paper were always waiting, patiently – sometimes used and sometimes not. Meanwhile every couple-few years, my mother would gift me paints and brushes – a loving reminder of who I was. These gifts would largely go unused, probably due to laziness, or intimidation, or both and maybe more, but, when I tried to use those paints, they only served to reinforce that I couldn’t paint. However, I was an artist, with or without paints, even if I didn’t want to be one, even if I didn’t want to admit it.

Want is a funny thing, and while not particularly wanting this thing, I always was this thing. I was the son of an artist mother, who imbued a deep sense of creativity into me. I was always drawing, like most, as a child, but this continued through my teens and on and on and on. I studied art history in college, took some art classes there, and even eventually went off to school for graphic design and commercial/production art. A few jobs that were entry level left me with a sour taste in my mouth, I suppose it was the commercial part that threatened my sense of purity, a resistance to profiting from what came from deep within me. Little did I realize, its that place within that provides us with reason, purpose, and an undeniable right to claim what is ours to claim.

Years passed, and though I still drew, I couldn’t come to calling myself an artist. Could that be avoidance of playing any imposter syndrome, replaced by an ego-driven, lack of self-worth game with myself? I don’t know. I do know that one might be something without wanting to admit it, though.

The image above is a detail one of my earliest of oil paintings, done on boarded canvas, portraying the moment before the last supper of our western world’s most famous hero. It displays the early development of my particular approach to human anatomy. This is something I cover in my article called “A Nose is a Nose” from a few weeks ago.

Honestly, I don’t know how all this happened, now being an artist and all that, since only a few years before, I had tried painting for the third or fourth time in my life with complete and abject failure. Suddenly, I realized I could paint, but I still couldn’t admit to being an artist. This decision would still be a couple of years away at that point. Is creativity a seed that cannot be rushed? I just dunno, but these days, and now for these many years, my tree is fruiting (I hope its tasty!), and I do, indeed, now know that I am, admittedly, an artist.