Calling myself an artist

There's a bit in the White Pube interview with Flo Dill[1], where Flo talks about how she feels like artists have this compulsion, this absolute need to make art, and how she doesn't have that, and feels a little wistful over that lack.

And Zarina does ask her - so if you could choose to have that, would you? And she says no, I'm happier without.

And, like, she's on radio, and she's conducting an interview as she says this, so she's very clearly a creative person all the same.

And this mindset has previously made me question whether I am an artist - I don't know that I feel driven to make art, I feel like I could just not make it.

And I mean, I do call myself an artist, often enough. But also I don't feel like I need to? I was doing the same kinds of stuff before I felt like I should use that term, it was just games and other projects. And then I hung out with artists some, and felt like I should also call myself one. They said "you're an artist! you should call yourself that!". But at the same time, I don't feel like the communities of artists I hang out with are more core to my conception of myself than the communities of gamedevs I hang out with. I don't feel the drive - feel a strong enough drive, anyway - to get exhibited in arts spaces, to have a career in that world. I mean, it'd be nice, I like to go to weird places, I like to see people see my work, I like to feel important. But I don't feel like I need it to feel like I've made it. To make the making worthwhile. [2]

And I mean, that's the thing. When I look back, I can see a revealed preference - given a choice between more money or working on something interesting, I choose the something interesting. And interesting means a new project, means more creative control over it, means trying something I don't know will work. Following my nose, I guess.

But, I mean. I don't feel it like a drive or an itch. Not really a compulsion. And when I'm making things, I don't often feel transported in creative visions. I mean, sometimes, very rarely, I do. But most of the time it's just... work. Often irritating work -- I tend to have the habit of making the kind of things where I have to do a lot of tedious stuff in order that the people who will interact with it later can get to do the fun creative state-space-exploration themselves. Instead, it's just a thought of "oh, it would be cool if...". Or "someone really should make...". I'll even admit it's sometimes "wait, [person]'s thing is getting some attention and I reckon I could do better". Or even "they're wrong, but to demonstrate the counterexample I will need to...". Or, with pottery, often it's a "oh, I should learn to make X" - but I have a bit of a different relationship to pottery than to my other work, there's something about the fact that I'm making single artefacts, useful things that can be appreciated even if they're worse in every aspect than some other bowl or mug or plate or vase existent in the world. I've spoken about this before.

Anyway. My point is, I don't feel like my self identity is bound up in calling myself an artist. I don't feel like I'm compelled to make art. I could not! But, and I guess this is the important bit, I don't feel like I have to be compelled to do it in order to choose to do it. I could live a different life, but I think it would not be as rich. So I choose this one.

And, funnily enough, that last paragraph also describes how I feel about being trans.

[1] A transcript of the relevant section:

Zarina: But um yeah, we thought we'd speak to artists about maybe like a more general sense of like how they go about things. And every single person we spoke to said in some way, in some form, I have no idea why I do this. This is not materially or financially beneficial to me. I'm like, I'm not I'm not paying my rent with this. Like, it's not like--this isn't a living, but I don't know how to not make art.
Gab: You have to.
Zarina: Yeah, it actually comes out of me. Yeah, it's like a compulsion.
Flo: I wish I knew what that felt like.
Gab: But but I mean you've got like a different relationship with like a different thing. Like do you feel like you have to do this? [gesturing at the soil in which they are digging]
Flo: No.
[all laughing]
Zarina: Do you want to do this though?
Flo: Yes, very much. I find it really enjoyable. I find it really satisfying and I find it kind of therapeutic which I'm sure that artists feel in some way about the stuff that they do too. Maybe to greater or lesser degrees with all of the different things. I don't have that like – it's not my self-expression. It's not my – if I don't do this I'm going to die.
Gab: Okay, yeah, yeah.
Flo: You know, I don't know what that feels like. And I I really think only artists feel like that.
Zarina: Do you want it though?
Flo: Maybe not.
Gab: It's so intense
Flo: Honestly, after I read your book, I was like, "Oh, I'm good. I'm good. I'm good."

[^2] a sidebar here for how maybe this is because I started by making Things For Online, and, like net artists, therefore have a weird relationship to the gallery. If I make a webpage which is itself a work of art, you can put it in a gallery - but it's a weird fit compared to looking at it from your computer, it's a translation of the piece which has lost something, the same way that a high resolution scan of a painting you can look at on your computer has lost something compared to looking at it in the flesh.