Creating an Artistic Identity: Is it essential?

As an artist who has struggled for YEARS to create an online presence, I have often chaffed against the idea of the perfectly optimized identity. My forays into various mediums and styles have often felt like they simply didn't "fit" in with each other. The very experimentation that leads to great art can also lead to a sense of fragmentation without the proper container. Would a "painter" website be the best move? What about my graphic designs and coloring book? When constantly barraged with tik-toks and instagrams of people, or let's face it, brands, living their best lives, and surrounded by perfectly coordinate decor - it just felt challenging to present my work into one "tidy" website.

You can't type in a search for how to start an online business or sell art without hearing about the importance of creating a brand identity. What are you selling and why? Who are you really? These can feel downright terror inducing to those of us who are happiest surrounded by our chosen medium and a blank canvas. The people selling these ideas are beyond confident that if you simply follow their steps success will be knocking down your door. Maybe that's part of their charm - the idea that something like living off of your creativity - traditionally one of the hardest ways to eke out a living - could be so easy!

I am not a salesman. I find the idea of putting my creativity into the world both enticing and terrifying. I struggle to name my paintings at times, to give them an identity beyond the simple creation of their existence. While I dream of having a showing at a gallery; I find the idea of greeting and talking with my potential visitors overwhelming and a bit scary. Maybe this is just because it is a new direction to move in and beyond my comfort zone.

While it is true that, in a sense, selling your art makes you a sort of business - and businesses with clearer brand identity are more successful. Selling art is a bit messier than that. The art IS your brand identity. It's YOU. When you are cleaning up a brand identity it's your own. Is this something that only American artists struggle with I wonder? Within a culture that blurs the line between individuals and corporations, have we made a professional or artistic identity more complicated for ourselves? We live in a time when the lines between brands and personal identity have blurred, influencers rule by with the merit of a life they have carefully constructed.

I had to pour over other artist's websites before feeling like I was ready to create my own. I had to see the way other artists have felt or portrayed that their art was enough. There is a story my dad likes to recount about the composer Chopin. After he finished playing a piece of music, an audience member asked him what it meant. Chopin didn't say anything, simply sat back down at the piano and played it again.

This is the artistic dream, of course, that a piece of work transports someone into a more ethereal mind space, beyond words and definition, where they can experience something real about existence and the universe. For me, I would like viewers to experience the wonder and marvel of the universe; the beauty and complexity of being alive.

The problem still comes to the people OUT THERE finding your art IN HERE. It's the web of connections, the right SEO words that match the seeker to the treasure, the network of people that you interact with, that know your work. These things feel painfully unavoidable, while being so much more possible and available than ever before. The dream is within reach!

I will work to understand these avenues of exposure because I feel ready in a way that I haven't in the past. I won't feel comfortable and most steps feel awkward and tentative. But, a person who is articulate about their work and purpose - while ever-evolving - is a person who is going to capture the attention and imaginations of people - and potential customers.

I guess the first step and perhaps the hardest, is to accept yourself where you are, which holding future dreams lightly in hand; no small task. You must learn to believe in yourself and invest in understanding yourself. "Know Thyself" is maybe the best place to start - and for most artists, this mostly means "Make Art!" The world you create around yourself then becomes an extension of yourself. A cocoon of creative play between you and the world around you.

Then the adventure begins, you in the driver seat, for better or worse, a life-long process. There will be missteps, and learning and growing (hopefully beyond your wildest dreams) and fingers-crossed after the hard work - maybe some success, certainly some fulfilling relationships and community-finding, and maybe even some people willing to hand over their hard earned money for a piece of the magic you offer the world with your art.

In conclusion, YES. It is essential to have an artistic identity, but not the the sense that you necessarily edit out parts of your Self - but more because you get to know and feel your True Essence as an artist and a human. Joseph Campbell once said that when he looked back over his life he saw clear patterns, patterns that at the time had been obscure to him. This is part of the mystery of becoming. We cannot always see all the ways our selves are reaching towards some answer to the question of our existence. We can take the time to be patient with ourselves, to feel ourselves, to move in directions that feel authentic to us. We can revel in the beauty of the mystery of ourselves and our universe. We can learned to look inside and listen to the sometimes quiet voice of inspiration. And we can bring what we have learned about the mysteries and the process back to share with the world. That is the Artistic Identity you should seek out for yourself and share - That is the Artist's Journey.