The first time I called myself an artist in response to someone asking what I did was 2 years ago and it felt really weird and a massive risk. It was a really nice day and I was digging out invasive species of giant ragwort along Shoreham beach with a group that manages the beach ecology. After I said it, I thought some claxon would go off and a bunch of artist police would come running shouting fraud and arrest me! but the sky didn’t fall down and the other person just accepted it and there was no judgement, instead they thought it was really cool and asked about my work and the artist open house exhibition I was involved with.
I didn’t think I was allowed to call myself an artist for so long because I wasn’t in galleries and didn’t have my own studio and did other work to earn money and all that external stuff. Also, I growing up I was told art isn’t a proper job, and I believed unless you’re a special person who went to the right art school you had no right to inhabit that space.
A bit later I had a conversation with a friend with regards to my struggle to call myself an artist and she said ‘but that’s what I always call you; my artist friend Claire who happens to do contracts’. I loved that, how she saw me was so different to how I thought I was perceived. She saw I did the contracts for money but it’s not who I am, and who I am is an artist and always have been. It was the loveliest thing to hear, I felt seen for me, she’d been referring to me as an artist way before I dared to myself.
The photo is the Friends of Shoreham beach ecology group.