Being an artist -- break the rules!

Clouds inspire awe
Photograph
Barbara Muir 2022

I am at the end of a combination work and holiday for two weeks.

My husband Steven was on holiday, and although I kept working, there
was still a holiday air about the past two weeks, and we went to
Ottawa, and visited my brother and his wife. That was lovely. 

Plus we went to the AGO, (Art Gallery of Ontario), which counts
as work for me. There was a so much going on -- so many exciting
exhibitions. So tonight I'm going to share a post from a few years ago
about a visit to the MoMA in New York City, and a great talk with

a docent there. 

So here's my post:

"I was in the MoMA yesterday, and talked to more than one of the docents
who guard and explain the exhibitions.  One fellow who I met last time
I was at the MoMA remembered me, and that I'd told him to ditch
the word "hobby."  He paints for 8 hours every day!  He won a contest
at the Art Institute in New York City, that gave him free tuition.  But
because he isn't in exhibitions, he considers himself a hobbyist.

Talking to people who work in the art field, whether working in
museums, or in art supply stores, I hear this apologetic tone over
and over again, from people who are making art.  Art schools tell
their students that they aren't really artists until?  Until what?
I say the minute a child puts a crayon, or paint brush or pencil
to paper, that child is an artist.  That's what it is.  Doing it.

And as we talked the docent and I realized how crazy it was
to be told artists must do this or that, surrounded as we were
with every kind of modern art experiment -- now valued as
the best in the world.  These artists broke with convention and
everyone calls what they did -- art!

Have a making your art day.