In recent weeks I’ve read some informative works featuring the concept (perhaps even the psychology) of art and so-called “artists”. Generally I’m discovering the artist as a person-type, a diagnosis, a definition. This knowledge is useful to me. I relate, and I recoil.

I am not a researcher in the productive sense. This artist subject, though, may be a research I would pursue one day. There’s a great deal of material on this already. There’s a great deal of material everywhere.

But still, these works I’m reading speak of this process, this chiseling, this “productive” doing thing.

I’m not one for labels, and yet I am always seeking to label myself. I have a business card that reads, kEith kimmel, “artist.” Am I an artist? From these books I’ve been reading it seems so.

They suggest there is a problem. And there is. Among them: art can be solitary. Art can be unrewarding.

The first major work I did was Jeremy's Prophecy Dot Com; this was an interactive novel. There was mostly writing in that work. There was graphic design, as well. I thought maybe I was just an author. That my lot was to write books for a living. Only recently did I even discover painting.

“It is said that artists don’t get down to work until the pain of working is exceeded by the pain of not working.”

Indeed.

Further Reading:
Bayles, David , and Ted Orland. Art & Fear. Santa Barbara: Capra
P, 1993.

Cameron, Julia . The Artist's Way. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons,
1992.