Today's word is confidence. It came up in conversation as something overrated, which was specific to child rearing. Confidence is one of those words that has became code for what we think children need. As I ponder this word I realized that I have used it with regard to myself and the ways that I lack confidence in my voice as an artist. I love language and unraveling the meaning of words. I truly enjoy semantics and the nuances of our language—confession: English teacher fully on display.
The issue of having or creating confidence shows up for me in my artmaking path. In college and on through my 30's I was very much a 2D visual artist pushing into mixed media. My #metoo themed art was considered too difficult and not relevant at the time. While I had my gallery in NYC I realized that my desire to write was the strongest pull I had for my artist voice. What I didn't know then, but do now is that in someways I lacked confidence in my artistic voice. Numerous rejections in attempting to move my art out into the art scene of NYC was in fact undermining my confidence.
What I saw with the artists that showed at my gallery, Eich Space was a drive that I didn't have for my visual work, but I did have for my writing and poetry—a persistence if you will to create my writing no matter what.
The process of truly pursuing that calling in writing and in poetry happened after I closed my gallery. Unsure of what to do next I went to Arizona and stayed with my mom and stepdad. I was the nighttime cook at a diner and wrote a lot of poetry. When I went back to NYC I had the opportunity to be selected for the first cohort of the New York City Teaching Fellows program and pursue an MFA in Poetry. (For full disclosure: I was able to shift into the MFA program at that time because that contract for the first Teaching Fellows had a few holes, which have of course been removed from the contracts that are now presented.)
So I'm in an MFA program and everyday standing in a high school classroom teaching English, my favorite subject. I spent two years in NYC teaching high school English and then moved back to Arizona and continued my MFA at ASU and spent a few years in rural Arizona also teaching high school English and journalism. During those years I kept writing poetry. (Again for full disclosure: I was able to complete my degree beyond the two years of my time as a Teaching Fellow because that contract for the first Teaching Fellows had a few
holes, which have of course been removed from the contracts that are now
presented.)
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Here's an import aside: the creation of a personal narrative in telling a story is much like what happens when books or real events are made into movies: creative license is at play. The arc of my story is true, but it must be held that a ridiculous amount of detail is not present here because this is a broad overview that is considering a very specific issue about how confidence is built. I interject this as currently the Oprah Winfrey interview that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex gave is being dissected in a way that negates the human process of how each individual creates their own narrative. I speak to this as I have watched my own child create her narrative as she embarks on her young adult life. Child-rearing is truly a laboratory of how human experience unfolds.
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When I got pregnant at 41, I moved on to teaching first year college writing. I did that for eight years. About midway through that time I started writing blogs. My most important blogging was my weekly commitment to Motherhood Later Than Sooner for one year. My writing voice got stronger. My ongoing college teaching had me seeped in the minutia of writing. Eventually without realizing it I became more confident in my ability to write, to tell a story. The confidence came in the act of doing, in the persistence of struggling beyond my personal censors. Also it came from struggling through the process of finishing my MFA and by having an audience that was interested in what I had to say.
In my late 40's I had the opportunity to pursue a dream of going to film school. That sounds so calculated, but really I had pined to be a filmmaker even as I had my gallery. Through a series of cosmic butt-kicks I realized that the film program connected to the community college where I taught would be a lot easier to do while my daughter was in the college's preschool program. Many people helped make that endeavor possible and I was able to make an award-winning short film because of all the support I received.
After that film program I kept trying to find my path, as a writer, as an educator, as a filmmaker, as a poet, as a person with a full-time job. Finally, I got brave and found an amazing office situation that I could afford provided by a very dear friend. The physicality of that space was similar to when I got my first art studio in NYC. Both moments helped me to believe in myself. Each time and place added to my confidence that art was my path in all the forms it has taken.
A few years back a dear friend from college said she admired that I hadn't sold out and that I was still trying to pursue my dreams as working artist. I laughed and said I was trying to sell out; i.e. trying to find a full time job, but nothing was working out in all the applications I was putting out in the world. No call backs, no interviews, absolutely nothing in full time work was happening for me. Instead I was a full-time caretaker through many intense family events. Caretaking was my unpaid work. And the shame of that has at times taken me to a dark place. Sadly, this society does not value artmaking or caretaking as both are difficult to measure monetarily, though their value is inescapable.
Fast forward to the present. My artmaking path has lead me back to where I started: making 2D work. The themes are still the same, but now my confidence in my voice has me looking at my old work in a new way and also considering my new work with a greater confidence borne from my life experience.
Does one know when confidence has been attained? Recently, literally I woke up and I felt like Wonder Woman. All the judgement about how my life should look had evaporated. I would be remiss if I didn't again say how hard it as been these last seven years and yet when I look forward I see...endurance. Years of creating artwork in many media is now culminating in new work that has a clear and resonate voice.
I feel confident.
For more about confidence check out my posts at Run Mo Run and Motherhood Later Than Sooner.
