Artist

Well, it seems I am an artist.  Identifying myself as an "artist" has never been part of my self concept.  I strongly identified as "creative" and have loved making crafts, arranging holiday vignettes and personalizing my living spaces, even as a small child. My mom tells me I would arrange my play things "just so" in a little toy kitchen.  It was usually, promptly destroyed by my younger brother, much to my consternation.  I also cannot remember a time when I didn't have a stash of crafty things for making gifts, cards, Christmas ornaments, and random bits of this and that.  I felt totally and completely "unglued" when I couldn't find my, you guessed it, my glue gun for a few months after a recent move.  I was totally disoriented.  I doodled through every lecture I ever attended, right on up to and through my doctoral program.  But, straight up artist was not me but people who painted or had fancy cameras and dark rooms or did more than just doodle.   I formed my identity around being academic.  I studied, researched, hypothesized & memorized.  I am fascinated theories, ideas, research results.  Boring nerd stuff.  I went as far as I could go academically.  Hello, Doctorate in Philosophy of Psychology.   Recently, I joined an online community via Facebook called Open Group for Bedlam Farms, started by one of my favorite authors, Jon Katz.  This a community for those who love animals, writing and other forms of creative expression.  As I have seen posts of photos, paintings, poems, essays produced by individuals who identify as artists, I have considered the possibility that I might not just be a nerd, but also an artist. In fact, I think I can pretty confidently say that my creative expression "counts" as art. How can I be sure?  Well, in true nerd fashion, I looked it up!   According to Google, "art" is defined as "The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture,...: 'the art of the Renaissance.'" And "Works produced by such skill and imagination."  Hmmm....  chew on that for a while, self!  Major, cataclysmic shift, tectonic plates in my brain crashing.  It seems that all these years I have been creating art!  Therefore, it follows that as a producer of art, I am an artist.  My brain still screeches to a halt writing that sentence and starts looking around for more familiar academic territory.  That's okay, though, I'll integrate this new idea into my sense of self.  Its nice to experience growth, even in "middle age" (although if I live as long as my great grandparents, I won't be truly middle aged for another decade!).  I am looking forward to being a part of the artist community as nerd artist!

Photograph of my dog, Kona

Photograph of my favorite flowers.