are you an artist too?

Hello Everyone, Swetha here again!⁠

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YES! ⁠

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I am totally an artist!⁠

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If we go down the “did you go to art school” route, yes I did. I have my BFA, which I basically switched into on a gut feeling after losing steam on science courses I was taking - so I am all for that!⁠

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However, it took me a long time to call myself an artist. My art is very personal and sometimes I am not comfortable sharing. This became very apparent to me when it came time to display my art at school. We learn that art can be so many things in art school but it took me some time to figure out my Art doesn’t need to be on a wall, and my art can be teaching others to find their own artistic groove, or better yet - as a modality for healing!⁠

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Also, I’m currently re-processing the euro-centric and colonized definitions of artists. There are so many ways art shows up for us and in us. There are so many parts of me that always were grounded in art, but they wouldn’t be recognizable as “being an artist” without a decolonized perspective. I want to end on that note: if we can pause learned judgment we can find there is an artist/art in all of us!⁠

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Sending you all good vibes,⁠

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-Swetha⁠

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// Originally posted on January 12th, 2023.