Lina Lucky Lavender

Before college I did not feel like an artist. Scratch that, before starting my second year as an art college student, I did not feel like an artist.​



The title 'Artist' was always some unattainable goal I set for myself. Only once I was able to do enough techniques, make art close enough to realistic, make enough artworks, get enough recognition, get my first commission, the list would endlessly continue. I would cast whatever limit on myself as I could, to devalue the artist I already was, because I never felt good enough. Not until my art started to amount to the bare minimum of my own expectations did I start to see myself as an artist. Creating a good piece here and there was not enough for me to feel like an artist. I wanted every artwork to be to a certain standard of good enough, meaning sketching terrified me. Drawing in my sketchbook is actually one of the things that saved me. I became less uncomfortable with making a mess. I became less terrified of mistakes and learned to twist mistakes, fix them, or highlight them even. I began to lose my expectations of my sketches because drawing in a sketchbook does not need to be beautiful, it does not ever need to be viewed by others.
​
My art continued to get better in college and I slowly grew self-love for my growing art skills. I was always too hard on myself, seeking close to perfection. Drawing in a sketchbook almost every day, wherever I was inspired, changed my art many ways. I changed the way I thought about art. I tested different ideas of mine, slowly growing certain sketch pages almost into my own style, but then it would look like a different artist drew the pages before and after. My style is incredibly inconsistent, as is my use of media. 

​

What changed me, what made me finally see myself as an artist, was teaching. I realized instantly as a teacher that every single one of my students was already an artist. That what makes an artist is not the ability to draw more than a stick figure, but the determination to sit and create (stick figure art is still art). I realized that doodling and sketching were enough to be an artist. I realized that if a person can have the determination and motivation to create, they are already an artist. This in turn took a load of self-hate off of my back. However, it did not purge me of my perfectionism. I am still learning to make a mess on paper/canvas that is not a sketchbook. I am also still learning to lessen self-criticism and judgement of others. Working with kids, where beautiful mess is often the goal, my perfectionism in my art has been rapidly chipping away. I give myself a lot more grace, and I hope one day I will not have to fight my need to imagine all the ways to make something better, and just enjoy art for what it is.