I AM an Artist

For a long time, I hesitated to call myself an artist.

Not because I didn’t love painting.
Not because I wasn’t painting constantly.
But because that word felt… big. Earned. Reserved for someone more certain, more established, more official.

Oddly enough, this feeling wasn’t new to me. Many years ago, when photography became such a huge part of my life, I remember feeling the exact same resistance. I was taking photos daily, building a business, working with clients — yet introducing myself as a “photographer” felt almost fraudulent at first. As if someone might stop me and say, “Are you though?”

It took time for that identity to settle in.
Time, experience, and a quiet accumulation of confidence.

Painting has followed a remarkably similar emotional path.

I have spent countless hours at the easel. I have created my first collection, shipped paintings across the country, watched pieces find lives far beyond my studio walls — and still, the word “artist” felt slightly out of reach, like something I was borrowing rather than owning.

Until recently.

Somewhere along the way — without ceremony, without a dramatic milestone — that hesitation softened. Not because everything suddenly felt perfect or mastered, but because I realized something important:

There is no official moment of permission. No one arrives with a certificate declaring you ready to claim the thing you have already been doing with your whole heart. No one else gets to decide your title, that would just be silly so why should I worry what others think?

I’m finally allowing myself to say it comfortably, gratefully, and without flinching:

I am an artist.

Sometimes we become something long before we feel brave enough to name it.

Signed,

An Artist