For a long time, I didn't call myself an artist because I didn't think I qualified as one
So it’s only within the last two years or so that I’ve started referring to myself an artist.
Like: “Hi, my name is Stacy. I am an artist.”
The moments are rare that I need to identify myself in this way — usually it happens in certain professional contexts (like in meetings when I feel like I need to flex to stick it to someone else, in panel discussions, or when I do some sort of noteworthy bit of public speaking.) In the past, I used to identify myself by my job or my discipline — so for most of my career, I was “Editor of Northwest Asian Weekly,” or I was “a graphic designer.”
(As a side note, I try to avoid telling people I’m a graphic designer these days. I tend to use the term “visual designer” instead — and not to sound extra fancy. It’s because whenever I tell people I’m a graphic designer, people get what that means and they try to hire me for stuff I don’t want to do — like designing brochures. Telling people I’m a visual designer is just esoteric enough for me not to have to awkwardly deflect kind gig offers.)
I didn’t call myself an artist for a very long time because I didn’t think I qualified as one, because for a long time, I actually didn’t create art publicly. I exclusively did client work for the longest time, and in my viewpoint, design work, while visual and can be beautiful, isn’t that much about aesthetics. Design work is about problem-solving.
It just felt disingenuous to be saying that the visual problem-solving that I did for clients was “art.” To me, it wasn’t.
Other people called me an artist, though — often when they introduced me to a new friend at an event or a get-together. Other people would be very nice to me and fluff me up and describe me as, “A very awesome artist.”
And I would just feel disdain inside about myself — about my limited body of work, specifically. I would also be annoyed my friend didn’t actually understand what art is. Pretty shit isn’t art. Shit that makes you think and feel — that’s art. And the stuff I created didn’t evoke feeling. Again — they just solved problems.
I know you might be reading this and thinking, “You’re selling yourself short, Stacy,” or, “You’re too hard on yourself,” or, “Yeah, that sounds completely on point and accurate, Stacy.” And you are all right!
(I am prone to wanting definitive definitions for things. I am rigid about definitions.)
One time many years ago, I was still a newspaper editor and not yet a designer — I was having dinner with my boyfriend at the time. At the time, he kind of grappled with the same thing I’m talking about here. His day job required him to be a builder of things, and the scope of his work was very much oriented around function and form. But at night, after work, he’d work on passion projects and would do more artistic freelance work for his clients.
We must’ve been having a discussion about art versus craft at the restaurant or something in that vein. And I remember, being in my early 20s and like, less bitter and a lot softer and more vulnerable — I think I referred to myself as an artist, because I knew I was good at drawing. I mean, I’ve always been good at drawing stuff.
And I remember he corrected me — not in a mean way. He actually corrected me in a very casual, almost careless way — which, in hindsight, stung a lot more than if he had been trying to be a jerk. I remember he said something like, “Technically you’re not an artist. Because you haven’t been paid for your art.”
That hit me especially hard. I started crying on the spot, at the dinner table. And I also got really mad at him for saying that to me, so we had a fight in the middle of the restaurant.
The server totally noticed but was also super committed to doing his job, so he’d check in on us constantly and asked if we needed more water as I was sitting there crying.
I don’t know if that moment actually led to years of being reluctant to call myself an artist or what, but I know that sometimes I get kind of nervous and antsy whenever people introduce me as an artist to this day. I often correct them and be like, “Specifically, I’m a visual designer and illustrator.”
Like, I want to keep leaning on my skillsets, rather than this broad statement of identity. Like, an “artist” is an entire mood, an entire persona. It feels like a lot to live up to sometimes.
Like I mentioned, I’ve always been good at drawing, which sucked for my mom, who was angling for me to be a doctor from the moment I was born. (Haha.) I think with the structure and rigidity and performance emphasis of my upbringing, I initially approached drawing as something skills-based, like, from the get. It took a while for me to turn drawing into a form of self-expression.
I remember that I would display this natural talent for drawing things accurately, and that was delightful and fun. It was partly so fun because other people got a kick out of it and encouraged it, and I was happy that other people were paying attention to this thing I could do and were receiving it positively. My teachers encouraged the hell out of it, for instance.
And at home, my mom was totally not impressed. Sometimes I would draw drawings of her, and she’d tell me they didn’t look like her. And I think back on those memories now, and I speculate that it must’ve been such a gut-punch to be hearing that kind of thing at such a young age.
But I actually don’t have memories of feeling too upset about it. I was kind of annoyed at my mom for being a hater, but it didn’t cut me like how a conversation with my boyfriend in a restaurant would cut me years later.
From those early experiences, though, a lot of my drive when it came to drawing was accuracy — making the thing I was drawing look like the reference picture.
It’s a very Asian-y kind of approach to a craft or an artistic skill — and you know what? To this day, I still kind of like, rue it. Sometimes I feel a bit constipated in my illustration work because I can’t mentally shake off this obsession with accuracy in the visuals. Sometimes I get annoyed and fed up with myself because I feel like my general desire to be anatomically correct is boring and bland and basic as fuck and my art is boring and I’m just going to forever be limited by how conventional my creativity is.
(Don’t worry. Other times, I think what I’m doing is great, and I fleetingly feel like the awesomest bitch there ever was.)
The first time I was paid for my illustration work, I was probably paid something like $50. And it was enough for me to think about my ex and reflectively and rhetorically ask, “So, am I am artist now?”
Not really. I didn’t feel like an artist at that point — I still felt like a hobbyist. I think it was partly because the amount was low. And maybe it was also the format of it — I wasn’t in a gallery, for instance. I just had all of these rigid ideas (it’s a recurring thing!) of what art and what artists are supposed to look like.
They are supposed to look intimidatingly indulgent, for one. They are supposed to look affluent and successful in their art-making. They are supposed to look like they are able to sustain their lives financially though making art.
(Things I didn’t think about at this time: I didn’t think about the racial makeup of the “successful” artists that I saw represented in popular culture. I didn’t think about pedigree or education. I didn’t think about the connections and the privilege that these people must have had.)
So I think it was easy for me to be robotically Asian-y about it — look at the situation and assess it as unattainable for me — and then made a deliberate decision to do something more within my reach, which was graphic design.
These days, I often think about that internal mechanism as well as the inequity in the art world that drives people of color to either opt out — or try and just be crushed by discouragement. I think about how rich and different-looking our art heroes can be, if access to that world was more equitable and accessible. Like, I think about how much time I personally wasted not even trying because I couldn’t see myself in it — because I wasn’t represented in it. And I think about how much time some other uber talented young woman is wasting right now — because she doesn’t see herself in it.
On the flip though, I often see people younger than me, with less experience than I have, proudly calling themselves artists on social media. They might not have “paid” creds, but they are living the existence of an artist. They are artists because they create. And sometimes, they disdain the idea of being paid to create — of art being transactional and steeped in these traditional, harmful practices.
I mean, I look at these people and I feel old and comparatively conservative — and thus kind of ashamed for how transactional I am — and I also feel inspired. I try to take a lot of lessons from these kinds of people.
I mean, they taught me to just say, “FUCK IT, I AM AN ARTIST WHO CARES?” at some point.
I mean, at some point, it’s like, really — who cares? It’s just a label. And feeling like you have to qualify or have the credentials is not really even what art is about.
I often wonder to myself if you can call yourself an artist if you’re always making frivolous-ass shit. I often wonder if you can call yourself an artist if you always look like you’re pulling punches in your work.
I mean, I’m asking for a friend. (JKJKJK.)
I say this because it’s hard for me to not be obsessed with marketability. But I wasn’t always like this.
When I was in high school, I used to paint. And I would paint these sometimes-ugly and sometimes-alienating and sometimes-divisive paintings.
I remember that during my senior year of high school, my body of work was up for consideration for purchase. My school bought one student’s work every year and would display the years of work in sequential order on a wall.
I didn’t get the honor. A pastel drawing of a polar bear won — and it was a beautiful illustration.
I’ll try not to make this sound like sour grapes (like I am still holding onto this slight decades after it happened) — but after I did not win this honor, my teacher addressed it with me on the side and laid her guilt about it all over me. She told me she thought the decision was bullshit — and it was also political. She said the other staff members basically thought my art wasn’t pretty enough or relaxing enough or pleasing to the eye. It was like, perhaps a bit tense or esoteric. And after a lot of debate, they voted and decided to go with the polar bear. And she was crushed over it.
I don’t think I was crushed like she was over it. I don’t remember thinking much about it.
But also, it must’ve affected me on some level. Because I look at my work now, and it is so pretty.
It’s pretty because I need to be able to sell my skillset. But sometimes I look at it and I feel like it’s not truly me. In adulthood, at some point, I would like to do something ugly and weird and divisive — or do more stuff with vaginas — but I’m kind of wrapped up in my job (my business) most of the time.
So sometimes I feel reluctant to call myself an artist because I haven’t made anything ugly in a long while.
Okay, I’m making this sound kind of grave and serious and existential — and it’s not really. So I don’t want you to send me reassuring emails about my talent and make me regret being honest with you, okay?
I think it’s healthy and good for artists to sometimes hate what they are doing or what they’re about. That’s where potential for really big growth happens — in the intense dissatisfaction. I think if we’re always content with the stuff we’re putting out, if there’s no regret or unease or disdain — then it’s probably too safe.
Also, I want to say that I know I’ve talked a lot about visual art and that side of what I do, but there’s also the writing side. This newsletter is also kind of a freestyle form of ‘a newsletter,’ and that’s artistic. I’ve been holding back on marketing this at all — because I don’t want fans or new friends — I don’t want to hear feedback from just anyone because that affects how I do stuff — but beyond that, I’m trying to work against my marketing tendencies. I don’t look at the stats of this dude, because I don’t want to start obsessing about it. I also don’t want to look too deeply about who reads this because I don’t want to start catering content to you. I would do that too! It’s a compulsion.