ARTIST’S STATEMENT
“I want to be an artist when I grow up.”
There’s a pure sort of knowing we have as children that often gets masked with time. Throughout my childhood, I doodled, sketched, painted, and wrote poetry. I tried community theater and voice lessons. I danced and sang in front of the mirror in my bedroom--door closed and locked--and dreamed about performing on Broadway. I bounced from one dream to the other, went through phases of varying focus on each art form, and veered between confidence and self-consciousness in my artistic expression.
I thought that to be a “real” artist:
I must pick which art was my art.
I must have a good memory for the history of the art form and its primary players.
I must know the current “who’s who” of the art form.
Others must like my work and think it’s “real” art.
BUT:
I didn’t want to choose one art form.
No matter what I read or studied, I could never quite repeat or recall historical facts.
I was no good at staying abreast of “who’s who.”
The pressure I created in my mind imagining other people’s judgment crippled me.
Over the years, through life circumstances and my harsh inner critic, my artistic expression atrophied until I could barely write a single sentence without asking, “Does this sound okay?”
But my artist was in there. She was crying, banging on my internal cage, begging to get out. I began to write again. It felt difficult but fulfilling. I said, “Writing will be my art.”
Then, the words seemed to stop. Trying to write felt like wringing the top of a jar jammed shut. Once in a while, the lid would pop open and out would pour words, but it felt out of my control. And, again, I judged myself for this. I had told people about the novel I was writing, and now I had stopped. I imagined that, based upon my history of jumping from one idea to the other, whenever I told anyone anything about what I’m doing, they would think, “Sure you are, Andrea.”
Still, my heart, mind and body sang, “You are an artist.” I shook in fear and disappointment from the idea that I might die with my art stuck inside of me.
One night, when falling down a Google rabbit hole, I came across the website of Coach Marla, a life coach for writers who promised that through working with her you would “reclaim your passion, creativity and personal power.”
That night, the words were there. I wrote to Marla, with authenticity and desperation, hoping she might help me free my inner artist from painful isolation.
And that’s what happened: Marla helped me get “unstuck.” She helped me forgive myself for my years of self-obstruction; shift my view away from the imagined or real judgment of others; and move my art into a sacred, internal space nobody could touch.
I remembered the joy of art.
However, the funny thing was, writing still felt hard, but another art form I loved, drawing, felt much easier. Marla reassured me, “There’s nothing wrong with starting with what’s easy.”
As a multitasker and mother of three, I spend my life running around, and I also worried my tiny bits of time might not allow for “real” commitment to art. Through the coaching process, I identified that I would need an art habit that was portable and flexible.
And so this is how my artist dislodged herself from the cage. It was a slow process that all began with a coaching assignment to bring a tiny art kit around with me and draw postcard-sized doodles purely for the joy of the process.
This, somehow, didn’t feel hard. And small art meant I could complete my work and feel a sense of accomplishment. Gradually, I built a body of work for nobody’s pleasure but my own, and more and more, calling myself an artist felt real and true no matter anyone’s judgment.
I also began to play, photographing my art and using apps on my phone to digitally cut, color, mirror, duplicate, combine and collage my pieces of art. All of my creations were portable, flexible, and accessible, which meant I could be an artist exactly in the stage of life I’m in now.
And, yes, I AM AN ARTIST, just like I said I wanted to be when I grow up.
I am grateful to share my art with all of you.
My work explores the connection between the seen and unseen, as I attempt to give physical form to energy, flow, and emotion. I combine drawing, photography, and digital manipulation until each piece channels the energy and imagery in my mind.
insta: @andrealeezucker