Give Yourself Permission To Be An Artist
The desire to be a professional artist is full of unseen stresses and influences that seem to keep us from becoming the person we dream of. Every creative feels this pressure to be more and do more but the cost is potentially career-ending and that cost keeps many professionals like me from ever closing our eyes and taking the leap.
Why do we push back on ourselves and never buy that camera or lens that we always wanted? You know what I am talking about, that one piece of gear that you don’t have that you just know will make your work soar and stand out. However, it's expensive, like really expensive and you have bills to pay plus a whole bunch of other little things that steal your time and money. When we are around our friends and family we encourage them to indulge and lean into their wants and desires yet we never afford ourselves that same permission.
It doesn’t have to be photography or even anything creative quite honestly. You might want a certain dog breed or to join an really high-end gym that you always dream of working out in. Whatever the luxury is we all need to remember that we only have one life and we cannot take any of our possessions with us. This includes the money that we save, spend and earn every single day. I am notorious for not spending money on myself. I don’t buy fancy clothes, cars, shoes or watches and I certainly don’t subscribe to all of the hip box services that everyone seems to be apart of these days.
I recently was turned on to the idea of giving yourself the same permission and encouragement that we give loved ones in our lives. I encourage my friend Sarah to follow her dreams and be a freelance graphic designer. My best friend Josh I constantly tell to stop being so stingy with his money and spend it on things he wants to the amazing coder I know he is. Yet here I sit with a list of professional tools and tech for my artwork that I have been making for 5 years now. I used to say that I was waiting 90 days to make sure these where things I really needed versus just wanted. But after half a decade has passed and my list has only grown I am realizing its time to change something.
It's time to start giving myself permission to indulge in my wants and desires in life, even if they seem too big and ambitious to succeed. I was originally going to buy a used large format printer that could barely be called entry level. Now I have saved more than enough to purchase a true professional large format printer that can produce lifesize work larger than I ever dreamed of doing. I am making the leap to medium format over just another full frame camera because as an artist this is what I want.
When we give ourselves what we want, what we feel we are worthy of, a strange thing starts to happen. We open another door in the world of learning and progress. It's like graduating from the small playground to the big kid playground and so on. We outgrow our tools and creative skill levels. It's time you gave yourself permission to grow bigger, better and faster than you ever thought possible. You can do it, you can learn it and you will be a success. Stop waiting for the right moment and realize there is no perfect moment, just a life worth living and meaningful art worth creating.
