Inspired by Matt Chewiwie.

We watched a video by a man called Matt Chewiwie a few weeks ago and it got me thinking. I arrived at the conclusion that I don’t know if I qualify as an artist.

Most of the work I do is written down. Stories based on the stories that I’ve known since I was a child. Some well-known like Robin Hood, Doctor who and Arthur and his knights, to others that are less so. Like the stories from the Eddas or the ulster cycles. Stories that have gone through thousands upon thousands of re-telling’s, since they travelled from the deserts to some frozen Scandinavian wasteland thousands of years ago.

At college, for my b-tech, we had a whole unit on “storytelling” which I adored. It was the first time I had been able to stand up and tell a story that I had written on my own. It went down ok. People laughed when they were supposed to, and I got a good mark for it. But my college experience was hampered by what they call in the medical profession, “Your brain turning to absolute mush because it can’t make certain chemicals.”  That coupled with my staunch and stupid refusal to go on medication, because our tutor once said that it can take away one’s creativity, did nothing to help matters.

She said that while we were doing 4:48 psychosis by Sara Kane.

I knew she was full of shit.

But like I said. Brain. Mush, and the biggest lesson I learned in those two years was that self-medication doesn’t work. Let’s move on.

Most of that early work is lost on the wreck of my old laptop. It’s gutting to me that I do not possess the techie know how to retrieve it.

I don’t have the patience to paint or to draw much outside of doodling in the margins of my notebooks. Though I enjoy traveling to the galleries and I have several very talented friends whose work I adore. The Tate modern, the Watts gallery and the National in London are my favourite galleries.

I did have a “Sketch book” at one point but I think honestly its for the best that that remains lost. Unless there’s a market for stick figures drawn by a nine-year-old hopped up on chocolate and Pokémon, then hey I don’t know.

I’ve been trying to learn the guitar for a while. Though it does not gently weep, so much as cry out for sweet release of the woodchipper.

So, in short, I don’t know where I fit into the word artist, if I do at all. I’d like to though.

I’m trying new things and I’m finding more and more things that stick. Like the writing, storytelling, the guitar and now the banjo.

If I ever did “qualify” as an artist I’d like to be one that can make people laugh. But also, one that can make people think. The kind of artist who, while making a joke, can sneak in a quick “but isn’t it fucked up that….” Ala the late Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams, that sticks in your mind like an icicle and melts into the waters of reason, in which your brain can marinade for a while.

So, I’m writing some guidelines for myself to stick to.

I’d like to be the kind of artist who doesn’t wait for my books to be published to include LGBT characters as an afterthought.

I’d like to be the kind of artist who is explicitly and clearly a feminist.

I’d like to be the kind of artist that tells people its ok to be weird.

I’d like to be the kind of artist who gives people heroes and heroines they can hold onto.

I’d like to be the kind of artist who inspires others to write their own stories and not have an issue with people retelling or interpreting my stories a certain way.

I’d like to be the kind of artist who tells people it’s ok to make mistakes if you learn from them and not to beat themselves up about it.

I’d like to be the kind of artist that the daily mail hates.

In short, I would like to be the kind of artist that I was looking for when I was younger.