Fake it until you make it (Jaeda's Artists' Cafe 11/12/99)

Several years ago a friend of mine, a beginning real estate agent, was leasing a Mercedes month to month. That's the worst possible way to get a car, from a bang-for-the-buck point of view, and she certainly couldn't afford a Mercedes any other way. I asked why she did it. Her answer was that she needed the requisite Mercedes to be in real estate (in CA that's true) and would "fake it until I make it."

When routinely seeing a counselor awhile back, in an unsuccessful attempt to change our behavior in order to salvage our marriage, we were told that to change behavior, it would be necessary to ACT in the desired manner until it became natural. It didn't work.

There's a wonderful small paperback book that was published about six years ago titled Art and Fear that talks about artists, the day to day creation of art, and, especially, self-doubt. Wondering how "real artists" work as compared to my own bumbling, knowing that I spend very little direct time working on it, compared to making a living, or even compared to playing with my cat, I read the book.

Art and Fear starts out by demystifying art, as something done by real people, not just by geniuses. Real people with the same doubts and the same problems. It talks about dissatisfaction with one's work, and how that is not only normal, but leads to the next piece and the progress one makes in the evolution of the work.

And it talks about the problem artists have with self-definition beyond the work we produce.

"He is an artist." Is that praise, or is it a reflection of a job title? Friends have suggested "artist" is something other people have to proclaim you to be. Like being knighted or something. I persist it is a statement of intent and a job. I make stuff of very little utility but chuck full of beauty and aesthetic surprise and wonder. At least to me. So I'm an artist.

No big deal. I wonder if I have to wear a beret now...

-Don