On Being an Artist
(but not always feeling like one)
I just got back from a trip to Seattle, where I was a guest speaker at a wonderful junior high school and a very cool soccer club. While I was there, I was so happy to be able to meet fellow graphic memoirist
IRL and get a pic of us with our books at the dreamy Elliott Bay Book Company!
Upcoming online events
Monday 12/2/24 from 12-1 EST (free): Visual Stories, Personal Truths: a conversation on graphic memoirs with Kelcey Ervick, Alice Kaltman, & Jesse Lee Kercheval
Saturday 12/14/24 from 9-12 EST ($75): Write a Flash Memoir of a Single Moment - a writing workshop with me
Thanks for reading The Habit of Art by Kelcey Ervick, a Substack Featured Publication (twice!). I love writing and drawing these posts and am grateful to everyone who follows along. I’m a writer and professor in Indiana. If you like this newsletter, you might like my graphic memoir, The Keeper, which was featured in the New York Times Book Review’s Holiday Gift Guide and is 40% off at the place that rhymes with Glam-a-zon. I edited a book on making comics and visual stories, you can find it here: The Field Guide to Graphic Literature (or here). I have other books too! Thanks for your support!
Just Kids is a great book. And this is a great post. I did a degree in fine art in my 20's... graduated "with distinction" and was even told by one of my teachers that I "could be one of the next great Canadian female artists" (???...such a stupid thing to say to a student). Still I struggled with making art for decades, and didn't truly feel that I could call myself AN ARTIST until I was in my 60's and had the exhibit Life's Work: A Visual Memoir that you checked out recently on my website. I thought I had reached a pinnacle and would finally lead the life of an artist (whatever that is) for the rest of my days... no problem. But life had other plans and threw some major wrenches into the works for a couple of years, and now I find myself once again trying to get back to making art. Still, through the last couple of years, I didn't lose my hard-earned "I am an artist" feeling. I now know that I'm 100% an artist, even if I'm not making art at the moment. But man it took a long time.
Oooh I love today's post! And also read Just Kids last month—such a romantic book of committing to a life of art. Being an artist is making art, but it also includes existential struggles such as these so I like to think it's all part of it!