Art Awakening

Today is the day I became an artist.  Today is the day I was born.

Every morning my alarm crashes into my peaceful slumber and I am startled awake. I open my eyes and immediately, I am thinking about art.

Before I go to sleep at night and finally commit to keeping my eyes closed, I study the photos on my iphone... photos I have taken of art I created.  Snapshots of paintings, photographs, linocuts and solar prints, pen and ink drawings and graphic artwork that I am paid to design.  I fall asleep with new ideas of possibilities swirling through my mind as art builds creativity.  It is an awesome vertigo.

I have been an artist for most of my life (I believe I was born to it), but just last year, after turning 51, I introduced myself as an "Artist" for the first time. An acquaintance asked "What do you do?" I replied "I am an Artist." It was freeing in a way that had me feeling a bit giddy and made my eyes water. I turned away and cleared my throat. Saying it was so simple.

In relationship to my art life I have introduced myself as a Graphic Designer, Freelancer, Crafter and Creative Person. I have never fully owned that part of myself that was different from others in my awesome ability to see and interpret the world creatively. My father was an Artist but was raised by a fisted hand and learned the harsh truth that being an Artist was unacceptable. Artists did not earn enough money to feed a family, or even themselves. So my father went on to be a Fireman, leaving his art to an idle pastime.

Given this background, my Art Self was not encouraged. I somehow managed to quiet the voices of my upbringing and became a Graphic Designer. I have never looked back. I feel that I was meant to be a Graphic Designer. I am very good at this, but I have always longed for a more artistic origin. I found myself wishing I had spent time in college learning the fine arts: The painting, the sculpting, the photography.

Well all is not lost! To my great relief, there is no age limit on learning. I am back in college and I am getting schooled in the latest the Communications Art field has to offer this pre-computer graduate. While updating my BA in Graphic Design with an AA in Digital Design, I am exploring my Fine Art Self along the way in Beginning and Intermediate Painting, in Advanced Drawing, in Independent Study Printmaking and in Digital Photography. This move towards Fine Art validates what I perceived to be my long-lost dream of becoming an Artist.

What I failed to realize in my early days in college, was that I was born and therefore, I became an Artist.  I was there all along living the dream of creating something beautiful, creative, striking or profound. Or simply making silly marks on paper, conveying an idea, writing a lovely word... being an Artist.

My Art Self has always had a special way of seeing.  I see beauty in everything on this earth. I especially see beauty in faces and characters and I thrive on recreating that in my art. Yes, My Art. The words of an Artist.

You see, when my alarm shouts its reveille, it is waking me to my dream... the dream I am born to every day of my Artist Life.

Darcy Cline - Artist.

Zebra Girl - © 2012 by Darcy Cline