Art vs Hobby vs Craft vs Profession

I have a few hang-ups, you may have noticed. Many of them have to do with dessert. Some with ants. Still others with television romances.

Among these hang ups is a hang up about openly suggesting I am good enough at something artistic to call myself anything semi-professional sounding.

I have this snobbery inside me for anyone who calls themselves an artist if they aren't... I dunno... somehow recognized, I don't respect it. Odd, you thought I was generally nicer than that, didn't you?

But no, I'm not.

Majoring in Art, now that was cool. That was easy to see where I ranked in the class on any given project - that was awesome to see how very few people were ever consistently higher than anyone else once we got to the higher levels, it was all just different. I could respect different and still feel cool myself. Because no one was just me.

At the same time that majoring in art made me feel like an artist (without the hang-ups), it also gave me the hang-ups. Because yes, this sketch is great - but its not ready for a gallery show... so we were challenged always that we couldn't just excel in our class - would we excel in the world? Did we have something to SAY? So, that is part of where my snobbery comes from.

Also, the fact that my "hobby" right now is photography doesn't help. At least with watercolor I can feel sorta cool in that while I'm not exactly tops in the field, not everyone has that particular talent/skill.

But not only can anyone point and click, bound to get good if not brilliant pictures now and then, but with the whole digital slr thing, anyone can do that with really cool clarity and form. And it seems to me a whole lot of people exactly like me are moving in the exact direction I'm moving (moms with the same camera, taking pictures of their kids, branching out to other people, blah blah blah).

Steve and I have been watching the "Genius of Photography" series again on the Ovation network and Steve pointed out a quote which was something to the effect of, "photography is the easiest art to master and the hardest to become distinguished" ... after all, really truly if we're standing in the same place taking a picture of the same thing, nothing makes my picture any better than anyone else's (I'm not getting into OH I'll have it cropped a certain way or I'll pay attention to the shoes while you'll pay attention to the face). Whereas, if we were painting the exact same thing, my stroke, my eye, my perspective, my style, even my color choices would just be totally different from yours.

So, I find myself somewhat lame.

I do not find it lame if I just call it my hobby. And if its my hobby, what's the harm in spending time (in moderation) honing the hobby? Hobbies I respect. Crafts, I respect.

As long as I stay unprofessional, I enjoy it, I think I'm brilliant in fact, because look how great this picture is - yeah, it's just a hobby... just something I enjoy that my mom and Steve allow me to play in (by taking care of my kids)

But if I'm professional. I dunno. Expectations raise my snobbery instincts. It makes me think one of my art advisers will see me and shake their heads in disgust.

Not that this is going to stop me. But this is a blog and this is what I'm blogging about today... until I upload photos from Abby's trip to Disneyland with Samantha anyway...