Who told you that you weren't an artist? This episode dives deep into that pesky little question and explores how those offhand comments can stick to us like gum on a shoe. We unravel the mystery of why so many of us have let someone else dictate our creativity, and trust me, it's time to take that word "artist" back! We'll chat about the wild journey of reclaiming your artistic identity, including the struggles and triumphs that come with it. So grab your paintbrush, your notebook, or whatever your creative weapon of choice is, and let’s remind ourselves that being an artist is about creating for the joy of it—no sales necessary!

At some point, many people stop calling themselves artists — not because they stopped creating, but because someone else told them they weren’t one.

In this episode, we explore the quiet moments that cause people to abandon their creative identity and how those messages follow us into adulthood.

This episode is for:

1. People who were discouraged from pursuing art early on
2. Adults with careers and families who still feel the pull to create
3. Anyone who’s been told art is impractical, unrealistic, or “not for them”

We talk about:

1. The moment creative identity gets taken away
2. Why adults feel they need permission to create
3. How talent myths keep people stuck
4. Reclaiming the word artist without needing validation

1. The Moment the Word “Artist” Was Taken Away

1. How a single comment or experience can outweigh years of creativity
2. Why these moments often feel small but leave a lasting impact
3. How silence or indifference can be just as powerful as criticism

2. The Stories We Carry Into Adulthood

1. How early messages about talent and practicality get internalized
2. Why adults stop claiming the word artist even when they still create
3. The difference between losing interest and losing permission

3. Talent Myths and Creative Gatekeeping

1. The belief that artists are “born, not made”
2. How comparison and early labels shut down experimentation
3. Why skill development is mistaken for proof of worth

4. Identity vs. Output

1. Why making art doesn’t automatically feel like being an artist
2. How waiting for validation delays creative identity
3. Why claiming the identity comes before results, not after

5. Quiet Reclamation

1. Taking the word artist back without announcements or pressure
2. Letting art exist privately before it’s shared or judged
3. Choosing not to argue with the voice that says “you’re not that”

Takeaways:

1. At some point, someone told you that you weren't an artist, but let's be real: who are they to decide that for you?
2. The simple act of creating something makes you an artist, regardless of whether or not you sell it.
3. It's crucial to reclaim the title of 'artist' for yourself despite what naysayers might think, so just go for it!
4. Every artist experiences silence and crickets, but that doesn't define your worth or your artistic journey.
5. Your identity as an artist isn't solely based on your output; it's about the passion and creativity you bring to the table.
6. You don't need anyone's permission to create; just dive in and let your artistic voice shine through!

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To reach out to me, email timothy@createartpodcast.com I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and let's start that conversation.

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Let me ask you a question.

Who told you that you weren't an artist?

You know, maybe they said it directly, maybe they laughed, maybe they just didn't take you seriously and at some point you believed them because you stopped creating, but because you stopped calling yourself an artist.

In this episode, we're talking about how that happens, why it sticks for so long, and how to quietly take the word artist back because no one gets to decide that for you.

So let's talk about it.

Foreign.

This is Timothy Keem o', Brien, your head instigator for Create Art podcast, where I use my over 30 years of experience in the arts and education world to help you tame your inner critic and create more than you consume.

Anyway, and this episode is asking simple question.

Who told you you weren't an artist?

Now, at some point in your life, someone decided something about you.

Maybe they said, maybe they said it out loud and maybe they laughed and maybe they just didn't take you seriously and somehow that moment stuck.

So let me ask you this question.

Who told you you weren't an artist?

All right, so in our first section here, we're going to talk about the moment that the word artist was taken away from you.

And that could come from anybody, from a parent, a colleague, a friend, a somebody that you trust, a professor, something along those lines.

But the simple comment, and this is what I find so interesting, is that a simple comment can totally trash your idea that you are an artist.

And I'm going to tell you right now that if you're creating stuff, don't have to sell it.

I've had this conversation with a good, close personal friend of mine and he said, well, you're not an artist until you sell your first thing.

And I said, well, that's a professional artist, not a, for lack of a better term, amateur artist.

So just battling that, battling the whole, well, I haven't sold anything, so I'm not really an artist.

Sometimes you're telling yourself that or that's something that you learned from, from somebody.

But then I look at kids painting and as I'm recording this, it's over Valentine's Day weekend and President's Day here in the United States.

But I saw my kids creating art, calling themselves artists, and they haven't sold a damn thing.

And, well, mom doesn't want their information out there, and so they're not going to sell anything for quite some time until they're ready and a little bit more mature.

But I call them artists.

They're artists.

I have their art hanging up in my wall in my man cave.

While I'm recording this to you, I'm looking at some of the artwork that they have created.

So they're artists in every iteration of the word.

In my mind, they're artists.

You're an artist.

But somebody took that away from us.

And however they did, and maybe it was yourself, but however they did, it didn't take much.

It didn't take much effort to take that title away from you.

And I want to make sure that you have it back and that you know that you're an artist.

A lot of people think they're an artist because a lot of people know who they are.

And you're going to find in your life that there's a lot of silence.

There's a lot of silence.

I call it hearing the crickets.

And it happens.

It happens to every artist.

Happens to every artist.

Wanted to stress that for you.

And you're gonna have those times when, you know, nobody's reaching back to you, nobody's emailing you, you're putting yourself up in a gallery, or you put your music out there and nobody comments on it.

And guess what?

That's okay.

That's.

It's maybe not for them, and that's fine.

You're not gonna find stuff that is for everybody.

You just need to create the stuff that works for you, that you connect with.

You'll find somebody else that connects with it.

At least one other person is going to connect with it.

There's what, 7 billion people on the planet?

You're going to find one.

You are.

Chances are you're going to find somebody that really enjoys your stuff.

So let that silence happen, but keep on creating in that silence.

So let's talk about those stories that we carry into adulthood.

Because when we're kids, we're artists and we don't really think about stuff.

We just go and do it.

Trust me, I've got twins.

They're of a certain age.

They just go out and do it, and it's artistic and they don't care if it sells or not.

It be great if it did, but they just go out there and do it.

Now, at some point in our life, whether right before we become an adult or we are an adult, and we're told very early on in our.

In our journey and our artistic journey, that, hey, you're not an artist.

And we believe them and we're told, well, artists struggle and they're poor and they're this and they're that and they're the other thing.

An artist is whatever you are, it's whatever you make it.

So a lot of times when we're adults, it's easier to go, well, yeah, you know what?

I'm not an artist.

And then just not do anything.

That's the easy path.

Congratulations, you've made it on the easy path.

But why choose the easy path when you can choose a harder path?

We were just talking in my house the other day about Robert Frost's poem, the one where met a path in the woods.

One was well trod, one wasn't.

And I chose the one that wasn't.

And that made all the difference.

There's a lot of different interpretations in how you can take that poem.

But for me, I take it as it's more interesting going down the less trodden path because then you have more freedom.

You can go here or there, the other place versus being stuck to, hey, we're going to go this path because it is so well tried, we don't even have to think about it.

And that's not a path I want my kids to go down.

I want them to be challenged at every time.

And sometimes as an adult, we don't want those challenges.

We don't want to have to think.

We just want it handed to us because everything else has been handed to us with modern technology.

So these things happen usually at very crucial points where people tell you you're not an artist.

And what we need to do is retell that story.

I'm, instead of saying, no, I'm not an artist, say I'm an artist.

I just haven't sold anything yet.

That's okay.

That is perfectly fine.

You may never sell anything and that's okay.

That's not an issue.

I've got some paintings that I just recently put out to friends and family and colleagues and I've already got people saying, hey, I want to buy that from you.

What?

And it's nice.

Artwork makes me feel good, but now people want to actually put money to it.

So did I have to wait 50 some odd years to become an artist?

No.

I've always been an artist and I will always be an artist.

And you can have that same mindset as well.

So in this next section we're going to talk about talent myths and creative gatekeeping.

And that happens to us all over the place, whether you're doing artwork in academic setting or if you're just doing it without any sense of direction, the belief that artists are born, not made.

You're either an artist or you're not.

Okay, well, let's just blow that one out of the water.

You're an artist.

Until you prove me wrong, you're an artist.

Okay?

Now, you can get better at your art through practice, through instruction, through mentorship, and through all these other things.

But I would say claim the title of artist.

Just go ahead and claim it.

You're not going to have the artist police come after you.

If they do, let me know, but I haven't seen them.

But you need to claim that title for yourself because you are an artist.

If you're listening to this podcast, you're listening to a podcast called Create Art Podcast.

So that tells me that you have got a little something kicking in the back of your head.

At the very least, you're an artist.

Okay?

It's just.

It's there.

All right?

Now, if you haven't practiced your art in a while, that's okay.

Then you go and practice it.

And sometimes that art is going to be stuff that you really don't like, but you have to practice it in order to get better with it.

When we're comparing ourselves to others and go, well, that person's an artist, or I'm going to compare myself to you, Tim, and you're an artist, and you got people that are interested in buying your works.

Don't do that, because my path is different from your path.

There's a lot of similarities in there, but our paths are different in our destinations are different in what we're going to accomplish before we die.

So comparing yourself to others, doing the.

This whole label thing of you're labeling yourself so you're controlling where you're going and what you're doing, that can really limit you as an artist.

So maybe we don't do the labels too quickly.

Maybe we wait till later on so that way we can use labels to better describe the kind of art that we do.

But let's do that later on.

And when you're practicing things like I'm practicing painting with acrylics, that is a skill that I am developing.

Every painting that I do gets a little bit better here, a little bit better there.

I learned a little something about myself and my technique that doesn't prove my worth.

That doesn't mean that I shouldn't put a price tag on my artwork for a thousand dollars.

I'm developing that skill.

And maybe at some point, maybe after I'm dead.

The.

The artwork will be selling for $10 million.

Who knows, who knows what it's going to be worth?

And more than likely I'm not going to see most of that because I'll be dead.

So let's not poo poo our skill development.

Let's keep on improving and keep on getting better at our craft.

Now we're going to talk about our identity versus our output because that can make us think that we're not artists.

So when I first started writing poetry, performance poetry, way back in the day, way back in the, in the 90s, I used to crank out three or four poems a day.

And now it takes me a while.

It takes me a while because I am at a different skill level.

I'm exploring different things with my poetry.

And that's per.

Perfectly fine.

That doesn't mean that I'm not a poet because I'm not writing a poem right here, right now in front of you.

All that means is that the output is different.

And it could be that you're improving the quality of your output versus just tossing stuff out there and shotgunning stuff and seeing what sticks and what doesn't stick.

So don't think that, hey, I haven't turned out something in a year.

Maybe you need that quiet time.

Maybe you need that time for reflection.

Maybe.

Maybe you need that time to gather information or develop your skills.

If we're waiting for other people to call us artists, we're going to be waiting a long time because they're dealing with things in their life.

Maybe they were told, well, an artist looks like this and sounds like this and only does this kind of stuff.

Everybody else is just a poser.

Well, if you're waiting for that person to validate you, it's not going to happen.

Not going to happen.

And after we claim that title for ourselves as a artist, then it's not going to magically bestow upon you a million dollars or anything like that, because people would be doing that all the time.

It's the work that goes behind it.

It's the skill development that goes behind it.

It's the marketing.

It's everything that goes behind it that takes time to develop.

It's not going to be an overnight thing.

There's no overnight successes.

And even the overnight successes that we see up, that we see out there took years.

That's what a lot of people don't tell you.

It took years for stuff to happen.

So if we keep the long term mindset, hey, this is a journey and it's a journey that I don't have a map for necessarily.

I may have bits and pieces of the map.

I don't have the map in its entirety.

It can be a lot of fun.

It can be really scary, too.

But at least realize that on that journey, you're going to pick up some things.

You're going to pick up some knowledge, some skills, some inspiration, some subject matter.

And don't worry if you don't write something every single day.

You may not be in the mood to.

That's fine.

You may have stuff going on in your life that prevents you from doing.

That's okay.

It doesn't mean you're not an artist.

It means that you're doing some quiet observation.

You're doing some skill development.

It may not be for public consumption.

You know what you're developing, but you're doing all that.

So that way, when you do produce a work that you do put out in public, it's going to be that much better versus just putting everything out there and seeing what sticks and never learning from it.

All right, now we're going to talk about that quiet reclamation, quietly claiming your artist title.

There's not going to be floats, there's not going to be parades or balloons or all that kind of jazz.

Just do it.

I mean, if you need to run out in the world and go, hey, I'm an artist.

Okay, cool.

Go ahead and do that.

Realize a lot of people are going to be like, are you crazy?

Artist?

But you don't have to make a big announcement about it.

You just do the work.

Do it.

And that's the strongest thing I think you can do, in my opinion.

You may have a different opinion on it, but I don't think we need to announce it to the world because the world really doesn't care.

They don't.

Not all, you know, 7 billion people care if you're an artist or not.

Now, the ones that do care, that's your target audience.

That's who you're going for.

Do yourself a solid here.

You don't need to announce it because the criticism will come.

It'll come.

And criticism is a good thing.

It means that people have decided to comment on your work, whether it be good or bad in their eyes.

But sometimes we need to build up that thick skin and have a body of work behind us.

Then we can announce it to the world.

And, you know, when people pop up and say, oh, no, you're not an artist, don't argue with them.

In their opinion, you're not cool.

Doesn't matter.

They're not on your journey.

They're not in your path.

You are.

You got to go on your journey.

You got to wake up with yourself every day and go to bed with yourself every night.

They don't so quietly reclaim the title artist.

Do that for yourself.

Do yourself a favor.

Don't need to go ahead and announce it to the world just yet.

Build up your strength, build up your confidence, build up your skills.

So that way, when you do pop out there and go, I'm an artist, and they go, yeah, no, you're not.

You're not doing this and.

Or the other thing.

You can go, no, but I'm doing this, this, this, and it's my journey, not yours.

Build yourself up a little bit before you go out into the world like that.

It's like going out for in wintertime here in the United States.

Bundle up.

Wear a couple of layers before you go out there and catch pneumonia, okay?

Don't let the.

The.

The virus of people trying to be a gatekeeper and tell you you're not an artist.

Don't let that virus infect you.

Protect yourself.

All right?

That's all I got for you on this episode.

I hope you do reclaim that title of artist for yourself.

You don't need to tell me about it, but if you want to, you definitely can.

Here's the thing.

You don't need permission to create.

If you want permission, fine.

Boom.

I give you permission.

Go create.

Have fun.

You don't need my permission.

You don't need anyone else's permission to create.

Just go create.

And you don't need approval to be who you really are.

You need your own approval to be who you really are.

But that's it.

You don't need anyone's approval to be who you are to be the type of artist that you are.

Maybe today isn't about making your art.

Maybe today is get gathering information, developing those skills, doing the icky work behind the canvas to get to the canvas.

Maybe that's what today is for you.

Maybe it's about taking the word artist back.

Maybe that's what you need.

Do it quietly.

Do it honestly with yourself.

You have to believe it.

I can't believe it for you.

You've got to believe it.

Create anyways.

That's the whole thing behind the series.

Create anyway.

You're allowed to do that.

All right, well, I want to thank you so much for joining me here today.

If you'd like to reach out to me, you can do that.

Timothyreateartpodcast.com is my email address Feel free to shoot me your ideas, your critique of the show, what you'd like to see.

Heck, if you want to be on the show, you can definitely do that too.

You can share this with a friend in whatever podcast app that you're using or if you're on YouTube, you can share it with a friend that may need to hear this.

They may maybe they lost their way and maybe they believed one of the gatekeepers saying that they're not an artist.

Give it to them.

Speaking about sharing the show, I run another show called Find a Podcast about and you can find that at Find Find a Podcast about xyz.

And that's where I help those listeners find their next binge worthy podcasts and outsmart the algorithm.

Check it out.

You may hear a podcast down there that's going to be your favorite.

I also run my own business.

It's called TKB Podcast Studio.

You can find it@tkb podcast studio.com that's where I help my clients lead through the noise with quiet professionalism.

I hope people make their podcasts just like I'm doing this podcast here.

Maybe you have something that the world needs to hear.

Let's talk about it.

Find me@tkb podcast studio.com that's all I got for you this time, this episode.

So go out there.

Tame that inner critic.

Create more than you consume.

Make a little badge that says Artist.

Wear that on your chest.

Make some art for somebody you love.

Yourself.

I'll talk with you next time.

Sam.