What does it mean to be ‘legitimate’? Whenever I tell people that I am an artist, the first thing they often say is ‘have you sold anything?’ I have, but does that matter? Is our validity really so rooted in whether or not the music of our souls is commercially viable? It seems a strange metric, but it’s one I hear time and time again.

It’s issued as a challenge, almost, an attempt to sort out the true, real artists from the, I don’t know, fake ones? Is there such a thing as a fake artist? I’m honestly not sure how it’s possible to be one. Art is intensely, deeply personal, it’s the way that we connect to the pieces of ourselves we’ve lost track of, and the way we speak when we have no words. It seems very strange, then, to consider that anyone, in putting brush to canvas, could be doing so unfairly. There is no legitimacy to be had, only validation, and those are two very different things. Is it about galleries, or is it about finding your truth? It seems odd to me that when faced with the possibility that an artist is compensated for her work, the reaction of many is to define the artist on how profitable she is. If one is never paid a dime for something they have labored over, does that mean they labored for nothing? Should they not have? Should they pack up their brushes and go home, if they are not recognized within their time? Does it matter that many famous artists who are now worth a fortune never saw a penny in their lifetimes? What does it mean, really, to be legitimate? How do you know when you’ve found it?

I believe that the only way to truly move forward, to create, to live your life, even, is to let go of the idea of legitimacy entirely. Give up, on trying to discern whether you’ve ‘made it’, whether you deserve to call yourself an artist. It’s a great way to sew self-doubt, but a terrible way to improve, and left unexamined it can stifle your natural talent as well as sap your energy to try. This sort of fear, the fear of not being legitimate, rolls itself into a big ball of ‘you’re not good enough’.  What use is that? The only true way to improve and move forward in your life and your art is to toss the concern aside, though it’s certainly not easy to do. Creating requires silencing the critic lurking in the back of your mind long enough to try something new, and that’s never easy. If you really put your mind to it, though, it’s certainly worth the result.