(Above: journal word cards I make for my workshops.)
Over the weekend, I was at a beach-side retreat for women so I was meeting some new people. I had just taught a journaling workshop (if you’re reading the blog because of foraging…you might not know my second book was about the practice of keeping a journal and I teach journal workshops) and a new acquaintance asked if I were an artist.
I made some digressive, stumbling reply about how I loved to ‘mess about’ with art, had a visual element to my journal practice, love to play with art materials…mumble mumble… but ‘no, I am not a ‘proper’ artist.’
My friend C, who was standing there, who is a visual artist, has been to art school, etc, interjected and said,
‘Helen, you are an artist. You are. You spend a lot of time doing art. You’re an artist!’
I thanked her…the conversation moved on…but it left me reflecting.
(Above: Mixed-media chamomile from a botanical sketchbook I’ve been working on.)
I have taught creative writing for most of my working life (at university) and there I was, encouraging my undergrads to claim the ‘W’ word, ‘writer’ for themselves.
‘If you are passionate about writing, you spend your time writing, you are a writer!’ I said to them. I meant it, too. I felt there was power in the claiming of the word for themselves.
And yet…and yet…here I am, old enough to know better, and still wiggling around doing the same thing for myself in another creative discipline. I studied creative writing at university and spend a great deal of time writing so it feels simple to claim ‘writer’ for myself. I still wobble around with claiming ‘artist’.
Aren’t our brains fascinating, and odd, and annoying?
(Above: Mixed-media red clover from a botanical sketchbook I’ve been working on.)
I think part of it is where a passion intersects with an audience, or with capitalism. I find it easy to claim ‘writer’ because I have published things and had an audience respond to them. My words have earned me (a little!) money. I have been successful in selling books.
(Above: art manifesto in the making. Sketchbook notes.)
My art is mostly in the vein of play, experimentation and enjoyment of the creative process. I have exhibited art work and sold a few things. When my children were small, I supplemented my income with making self-designed and drafted textile crafts and paper goods. I love taking photographs. I feel I have a good visual eye.
So how is it, I can, for years, have encouraged students to claim ‘writer’ for themselves and yet fail to take my own advice in another discipline?
Do you have a creative practice noun -artist, writer, musician, singer, potter?-…..you yearn to claim and inhabit but struggle with? I’d love to hear about your blocks or advice for overcoming this odd phenomena.
Love, Helen, (confident writer, tenuous artist.)
Helen Lehndorf 
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