Artist: in progress definition

From the series "wonderland" - Sandra Miranda Pattin

I haven’t updated this blog for so long, I realized now I’ve been busy changing priorities and investing a lot in growing, growing not only professionally and that is one of the reflections I want to make today but also growing spiritually (don’t judge the word too much I’m not in a monastery or doing any esoteric practices).

I’ve done many projects I could list them here but then I know people doesn’t invest more than 3 minutes – average - in reading something online unless is really interesting, so I won’t list them, I will however tell you that for reasons that I see as a gift from life I have understood that the most important priority of all is to search your own happiness regardless the recognition you can have for the hard work, from the art world.

So this is it, I have been concentrating myself in being happy with who I am, with what I do regardless the ambition that seems a huge fire burning inside of me since I was born. Questions have arisen a lot in the past times, things like who am I? I always ask to struggling artists that have a difficulty to call themselves artists because they haven’t gained enough recognition from the art world: when you travel and you through immigration and they ask what do you do for living, what do you answer? I for instance answer I’m an artist, I used to call my self sometimes an art curator, sometimes an artist, sometimes I would be more specific: I’m the curator of the Florence Biennale or the director of this Museum, or even I’m the art editor of this magazine. Things have changed, even though I still curate in my own way, I still write for magazines, I still work hard as an artist, I still produce art projects I realized that everything I do comes from the deep understanding that I’m an artist, no matter what the world could say or my very long CV could tell and specially regardless of what I do everyday.

See, I’m a very curious person, my mind is always an explosion of chaotic thoughts that intersect themselves in luminous lines of colors, I can’t dedicate myself to only one thing for hours, I have to go from one thing to another to silence my mind, so for instance I could be drawing and then I make a pause and write a little bit of an article and then I stop and write a proposal, then I stop and I cook, drink a coffee and then I stop and send an e-mail to a friend, then I stop and I work on a photography set, then I go back to drawing and so on. I finish everything on time but I can’t do just one thing, otherwise my furious thoughts overwhelm me. This is exactly how I live my life, I create artwork, I dedicate my self to dialogue with other artists and sometimes that results in curating exhibitions and projects, I write articles, I travel often, I write proposals, I read a lot, I write thoughts on my sketchbook and make really fast sketches on what an artwork could look, (on a funny note about this: I start writing on the right page of a notebook and then I go to the left page and so on, I’m unable to write in the “right way” for some reason my mind understands things like that much better) and I also spend some days just thinking and doing nothing, lost in the darkness or the light of my mind. I have no routine other than drinking a coffee in the morning, I wake up to invent what is it that I’m going to do with my day and with my life, sometimes I struggle with it and sometimes I wake up very lucid and clear on what life is about.

I believe this undefined self sometimes bother the art world figures, I gave a talk in the past few days about what it means to be a curator today and the specialized people struggle with the fact that I was an artist/curator which I can understand from a certain point of view but it is natural for me, there is nothing I can do, Sandra the artist has also a strong orientation for curating, or as I like calling it for dialoguing with other artists and from there to create an exhibition.

So yes, I might be an atypical curator, as well as an atypical artist or an atypical writer but that doesn’t mean I don’t do it well, the most important thing is I feel I invest all my self and all my knowledge and all my sensitivity in what I do and I won’t stop doing it.

This is what I’ve been busy with, allowing myself to accept the undefined self, understanding being an artist is not necessarily such a purist job. I kind of feel more a renaissance person, artists back then allowed themselves to be curious in so many things and work in many others, now we look at them and we feel fine about them, they had studios with other artists working for them, they had enterprises; I don’t have that but I do have that curiosity that takes me to so many different territories to work within the art world.

What does it mean to be an artist then?

I for once believe it is something much deeper than what you do everyday, it goes beyond the fact you work in your studio everyday, beyond exhibiting, gaining recognition etc… it is something you know from within and that you can articulate in many ways. And then yes, I believe you must work hard, you must take it seriously, be disciplined, study, confront your self with the world, put your self out there and see what happens, learn your techniques, look yourself in the crude mirror and work more and more.

What in my opinion you shouldn’t allow to grow too much within your self is the ego, that is a serious enemy in life, because ego has really high and defined expectations and it takes it bad if things don’t go as you planned. Letting go ego is one of the main things I occupy my mind these days and maybe that is the reason I stopped doing so many things, I used to communicate projects much more through social media, the blog, mailing lists and specially through my talking about it all the time, now I’m more quite, still very spicy and exuberant - as for those of you reading who know me, can recall.

Be yourself in the best way you can, be the best artist you can, listen to the world, keep yourself in touch with your intuition, that’s where the truth is, your truth, work hard but also allow your self to sleep, do nothing, prioritized resting and taking care of your self, allow your talent to speak for itself, tear in pieces the definitions of success, recognition, fame, artist you have written in your mind, allow them to be in progress, we are after all privileged just for that immense and marvelous capacity of re-inventing ourselves and transform constantly.