making an art

on creative identity and trying to value bad art

I was a circus performer for thirteen years, and I’ve been writing for nearly as long as I can remember. But I’ve never really considered myself an artist. When I was little, I thought drawing and painting was the only kind of art that made you a real artist. And even once I learned that that wasn’t the case, I still felt like there was some threshold of legitimacy that I had not yet reached. That the ways I created did not make me an artist.

I’m an art history major, and this quarter I’m taking a class on alternative art forms from one of my favorite professors. Our final project is to make an art. Not a painting, or a sculpture, but anything else. When he introduced the project, he asked if any of the art history majors had taken a studio class. None of us had. And he said that there is a dimension of art that can only be understood through making it. No amount of study can fully illuminate what it is to make art, to create.

All of which was a true, fair point, but none of which made the concept less scary. The idea of creating some unspecified “art,” with no boundaries or constraints, felt like an insurmountable task. But I started thinking about it anyway, working through what I wanted to think about, talk about, etc.

I decided I wanted to involve photography, but also sound. I wanted to take a bunch of disparate pieces and layer them. And I wanted to create something that wasn’t pretty, that wasn’t enjoyable to look at and experience.

And so I did. I made a friend pick music that I didn’t listen to before I moved to it. I photographed it, developed the film, scanned it into my computer. And then I added the sounds of an MRI, Phoebe Bridgers’ “Kyoto,” the sound of ringing in the ears, and a recording of me reading a poem I wrote soon after I got diagnosed. I had to take breaks while editing because the MRI noises gave me such bad headaches. I played around with blinking and repetition of the images to illustrate my visual symptoms. And I had way more fun than I ever expected.

Making this piece has, in no way, made me feel like an artist. In some ways, it has made me feel less like an artist. The amount of effort it took and the fact that I would never do something like that unprompted made me feel like I was treading on ground where I did not belong.

I don’t know why I don’t want to claim the word artist, why I don’t want to be an artist. Or do I just not feel comfortable, artistic enough to claim it? I go back and forth; I’m not sure. What does it mean to claim an identity? Who would I be if I was willing to loudly and proudly proclaim my artistic state? Who would I be if I stopped creating?

And is there a part of me that thinks that because I’m not making money from art, than it is not valid? And if so, what does that say about the ways that I’ve bought into capitalism? How do I break down that belief? Does claiming an artistic identity actually do anything?

But, I made an art. So, I guess that makes me an artist. At least a little bit.

I’ve recently come to the realization that I do not want to be a working artist. There are lots of reasons for that, some of which are practical and some of which are more personal. I stopped performing because I didn’t need it, and I didn’t find it fulfilling when I was doing it solo.

I don’t know what I want to do with the rest of my life. I know I want art to be a large part of it; that’s why I’m an art history major. (One of the reasons, anyway.) But I don’t want to be an artist, I don’t want art making to be the rest of my life. But I do want it to be present.

I want to take pictures with my film camera, develop and print them because I enjoy the process, not because I care all that much about the product. I want to learn about all the art, I want to try it out. I want to make my life feel like art, value every mundane moment enough to want to preserve it up on a gallery wall or hanging above my bed. I want to value being bad at art, especially when it’s fun.

I’m not there yet, but I’m trying. And I made an art, a kinda-good, kinda-bad art. Here it is: