Help, I want to become an artist
And I just told someone about it
“Seeing that, I have no problem taking you seriously,” he said, “what’s stopping you from doing it too?” Sitting in front of me, he was firing his questions at me in his usual, rather direct, no-bullshit style. I had approached him, a draftsman and illustrator I know, and told him that I sometimes dream about the A-word. Art. Mine. Moments earlier I had shown him some grainy, fuzzy photos of drawings I had made at art school. And now I found myself confessing I dreamt about becoming an artist. Although , to be honest, he did have to drag that word out of me. Artist. I felt, and still feel, some serious resistance to picturing myself being one. Let alone telling someone about it. But, deep down there is this undeniable longing. I’m a dreamer and a storyteller, after all. And he picked up on that.
“Don’t you feel you have somehow missed your calling?” he wondered in unmistakable bewilderment. Another illustrator, just over a week earlier. He too was holding my phone, staring at those exact same gritty, blurred images. They were handed to him when a friend of mine, whom I was showing my progress, suddenly turned towards him, shoving the phone in his hands. “Look,” she revealed to him, “Sven started drawing too.” His jaw quite literally dropped when he learned that I had only been drawing for nine months.
Squiggly lines
I still vividly remember my own amazement that faithful day, early June last year, looking down on those first sketches. Ever since early secondary school I had not drawn anything significantly more complex than a bunch of box diagrams, flow charts, and squiggly lines. Although I have always doodled an unending series of the latter, as an ex-colleague once attested. Occasionally I may even have ventured into something more intricate. The odd little tree or a flower pencilled in a corner of a notebook. A lone cartoon figure to fill up an empty space somewhere. In all, nothing really to convince me that I somehow had an aptitude for drawing lurking inside of me. Especially not when I extrapolated from my performance in Pictionary. Maybe I was willfully ignorant, but with those first focussed attempts at drawing in front of me, I finally had to admit there may be an artistic side to me. And, as usual, I was the last one to find out. The last one that dared to connect the dots. Most of my friends had long since seen that in me and in my photography (a different story all together, the topic of a future post).
What is no surprise is that it has only grown in the last couple of years. It could only have. I had almost no space for feelings for most of my life, and what is art but crystalized emotions in a way? In order for me to appreciate that, I first had to learn to feel all over again. I had to descend out of my mind down into my entire being. To open my heart and allow myself to be moved by the world. By its people. By their art. And then I had to reconnect with this innate desire to instill these emotions in others myself.
I’ve always created. It comes naturally to me. It is in my blood. I’ve conjured up dreamworlds and stories ever since I was a little boy playing with his LEGOs, constantly inventing and building my own models. Give me an opportunity to create, and I will grab it. I can spend hours playing, teaching myself Indesign, Illustrator or Photoshop. I love to cook and create my own recipes. Years ago I discovered photography (although, that’s currently a bit on the back burner). Beyond that, I dabbled in electronic music creation (with an iPad app, how else?), a scenario editor for the Descent board game and an online font editor (even though I know next to nothing about typefaces) — just to name of few of the odd experiments I engaged in given the chance. In short: I crave creation.
And, of course, I became a software engineer, believing it was my ticket to creating. It is not. It is about making things work, not beautiful. And I’m all about finding beauty everywhere. This is why, for most of my career, it felt like an ill-fitting suit. I wasn’t me. I didn’t belong in that world. Never have. And now I know I never will. So, hesitantly and with trepidation I am taking the first steps here. The path before me will bring me elsewhere. The journey may be arduous, full of conflict and doubt. It will be as difficult as it will be wonderful. I hope.
“You need to put yourself and your work out there,” he continued. Of course, I knew. It is Austin Kleon’s dictum: share, share, share! Even when it isn’t finished. Even when it isn’t good (enough) just yet. And that’s where the fear sets in. “But, I don’t have anything ready,” I mumbled in protest. Like so many things in my life right now, this is going to be a grand experiment in vulnerability. I’m not ready. Yet, I need to take the plunge. So, here I am, for the first time — and rather jittery, I might add — sharing bits of my aspirations and dreams with the world at large. Even though my audience right now, and the corresponding exposure, is still fairly limited. I feel somewhat safe under the comforting blanket of my anonymity.
I won’t make it if I travel solo on this one. I need to learn to reach out. Ask for help. Find my tribe and connect with them. If you can teach me, coach me, mentor me or support me, that would be awesome. I can use all the help I can get. I’m very new at this. All of this. A beginner. Everything is an experiment for me. That’s exciting. And scary. But it’s okay. I’m feeling the fear, and doing it anyway.
So, I want to become an artist, and now I really told someone about it. Now you know it too.
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Here is some of the work I created in the first six months of classes at adult education art school. Practically everything I do, I do for the first time. I often use materials I never used before, try techniques I never tried before. Mysteriously, most of the time this seems to work out nicely. This gives me the feeling that I somehow understand this at a fundamental level. All images have been processed slightly to correct artifacts of the poor camera of my phone, like color shifts and a lack of contrast.
