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My daughter is like many five year old kids. She loves to watch PBS Kids, play outside and color everything from the paper on the table to the walls of her bedroom. Her energy and unbridled passion for drawing takes up a lot of storage space in our house. It can be overwhelming for me at times especially since I’m a neat freak, however, I’ve grown to enjoy each creation my daughter has made.

One day she came up to me and asked, “Daddy, am I an artist?”

Like any father would I quickly responded with, “Of course.”

And like any five year old she responded with the classic, “Why?”

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Before I tell you how I responded I would like to walk you through my thought process.

Voices in my head:

1. What is the worse thing I could say?

– I’m sorry for lying but you’re not an artist. Now can you please stop bothering me I’m trying to watch an episode of “Jane The Virgin”.

2. What is the easiest thing I could say?

– I don’t know. You just are.

3. What is the best thing I could say?

– An artist is someone who expresses themselves through things like paintings, drawings, sculpting, music and writing. Since you enjoy drawing how you feel and what you think that makes you an artist.

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Now as you probably have guessed I chose to respond with option number one if I wanted to crush my daughter’s passion but since I’m not the worse father in the world I decided to run with option number three, which did the trick. My words both pacified the torrent of questions ready to be unloaded on me and it also brought a smile on her face as she took her little table and gathered some pens to continue her craft.

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Who is an artist?

That is at the heart of a question I’ve been battling with while I’ve tried to pursue my writing career. It’s a question that stops me from writing with confidence because I see the title of artist as something that needs to be earned. It’s like being called a professor at a college without having a Ph.D. hanging on the wall.

Is this frame of thought true? Does it really matter whether or not people like what you produce? Does your article, song, art work need to be seen by thousands and be acclaimed?

Ever since my daughter asked that innocent question I’m beginning to think the answer is, “no”. Being an artist doesn’t mean you have to produce art that is adored by others. Your art just has to be adored by you. That is what an artist should be about. They should produce things that come from their soul fearlessly.

Real art is meant to be an expression of ones self not a production to please the masses. Now this doesn’t mean popular art form isn’t art. It is and I think when you bare your soul people resonate with it. They may not always understand it but they can at least feel your soul in the artwork.  On the other hand when you create something that doesn’t come from within you ultimately hurt yourself. You end up losing all passion for your art because your soul is stifled by fear of rejection.

Don’t be an artist to please others. Be one to share who you are with the world. That is enough and that is all that is required to be called an, “artist”.

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Picture Credit: Keola Birano