Am I a creative or an artist?

Am I an artist? Or am I just some guy doing art stuff? I think perhaps I’m a creative and art is one of my outlets.

As it is, it might be presumptuous to call “art” my “barbouillages” (Translating loosely from French: somewhat messy dumping of paint.). But let’s assume for a second that it is art…

I’m not sure I could comfortably call myself an artist yet. Sure, I do art. I do sketches and some watercolor, and ink pieces. I try hard to do it daily. Though the reality is that I’m only managing 4 or 5 days a week, if that. In the immortal words of Yoda: “Do or do not, there is no try”, so I guess I am not doing art daily, despite my best efforts.

What I am, however, is a creative. And I’ve always been a creative. My creativity outlets these days are mostly sketching, photography, and quilting. But over the years… My creative practices have been many and varied.

As a chef, creativity is important. And that’s been one of the appeals of cooking for me. But chefs and cooks, we aren’t artists. We are artisans. Artisans don’t have the luxury of messing up. We have to deliver, day in, day out. Artists… Artists can embrace the imperfection. It doesn’t really matter if you do a line and wash sketch and one of your lines is a bit out of place. For example, in David Gentleman’s Paris, several of the paintings include people who were added after the lines of the building were in place. The lines intersect the people. It doesn’t matter. As a chef, putting too much salt in a dish… Well, you have to redo the dish.

The earliest creative practice I remember was building model cars, and painting them. I’ve also tried a bunch of other things. From tagua nut carving to needle felting, and a myriad things in-between, I’ve created. I’ve even made art over the years.

But no. No, I don’t consider myself an artist. I won’t call myself an artist quite yet. Maybe some day. But not today. Just like I write, but I’m not a writer.

But I’ve always been and will always be a creative.

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