13 Signs That You're An Artist (or Live With One)

 

The life of an artist is an interesting one; you can find yourself on a 6-month residency in a forest in New Zealand, and the next week trying to make your bedroom into a studio and photo shoot. Being an artist is all consuming and a juggling act, and often your secret life when you leave the office at 5pm. So we asked artists just what is it like being a creative.

 

1.     You’re trying to find your house keys at the bottom of your bag, but instead you find 20 scraps of paper with scribbles and indecipherable words that must have been light bulb moments. You eventually find your keys wrapped in an envelope of blue tac and business cards.

 

2.     Your entire wardrobe of clothes has a stain of paint or crust of glue, and you may not even use either of these materials in your work. How did it even get on your prom dress last worn in 2005?

 

3.     You most likely need to delete photographs of close ups of textures and colours to free up storage on your phone. But can you dare to part with the close up of the bit of rust you found last summer? It may still inspire your next artwork.

 

4.     You’ve experienced that dicey moment of nearly drinking your paint water and dunking your paintbrushes in your tea more than you’d like to admit. You’ve even survived that one time we don’t talk about.

 

 

5.     You count bubble wrap as one of life’s greatest inventions and would marry it if that were above board. If Tracey Emin can marry a rock, maybe get your proposal ready.

 

6.     You don’t need a gym membership because lugging your artwork across town and setting up exhibitions is more than enough movement for you to keep healthy. Who said artists were lazy?

 

7.     You have at some point used a make up brush, cotton bud, and tissue as an emergency paintbrush. Be proud of your problem solving skills!

 

8.     Your friends love you for all the weird objects you find on your walk home that later become your newest artwork. They may even be lucky enough to receive your artworks when Christmas and birthday’s come knocking.

 

9.     You spend hours on Instagram and Pinterest scrolling through images of artists that you love, artists that you want to avoid, and hair styles (you never know when pink hair will find its way into your portfolio, ok!)

 

10.   Clean, white fingernails are a distant memory. Don’t be embarrassed, let those folk think you’re filthy, they have no idea about the exciting future that you have as an artist.

 

11.   When you finally get time to tidy up between your day job and applying for exhibitions, you find bits of collage materials and paint follow you round the house and end up in bed or worse in the bath! How does that even happen!  How do all of your art materials take up more space than all of your furniture combined?

 

12.   You find yourself coming up with weird excuses for being late; such as I was waiting for a 6-foot owl to be delivered. Yeah you heard me, an owl- deal with it. (Thank you Vicky Scott.)

 

13.   You find yourself trying to find pictorial research for very strange things. Why doesn’t your search engine have a pile of photographs of a cat playing a trumpet, a singing chicken, or an evil fish? Surely if you’ve thought it there should be a photo of it! 

 

You should take a look at the Secret Art Prize here.

 

Written by Secret Art Prize and Curious Duke Gallery manager Sinéad Loftus.

Also an artist with glue stains.