The Anti-snob

Because of the holidays, I haven’t been able to get much done over the last week or so. Things are coming along, but not quickly.

drumlab2

This is the main one I must focus on since it takes the longest amount of time. The working title is Drum Lab, but I don’t know if I’ll keep it. This one is 24 x 30 inches, and as I’ve mentioned before, I am just so happy that it fits on my drawing table so I can work on it flat, but the tops of the mountain range have proven to be difficult because there have been times I’ve had to stand up and lean over the table to get to them – not so easy when you are making tiny little rocks with a #000 brush. But it’s a small price to pay when the rest of the painting has been so much easier to get to while it lays flat.

Once I get to the sky however, I’ll be putting this back on the easel. That will be a much more free-flowing process where I can use a bigger brush and wond have to worry about little details so much.

While I’m writing this I have to admit that for days now I have been wanting to write on a subject that’s been bothering me, but I don’t know if I should bring it up because it’s just so petty. Despite that, it’s on my mind and it’s been upsetting me nonetheless because I was recently called an “art snob.”

I have been called an art snob in the past. This wasn’t the first time, and I do have to take into account that on several occasions, it came from the same source, but not always. Needless to say, it hurt(s) my feelings. I mean, I get called a lot of things and sometimes it hurts my feelings and sometimes I really don’t care and I guess it depends on what it is and it depends on the source – like anything for anyone, right?

The first time I heard it (when it really bummed me out) was when it came from someone that really mattered to me. Someone whose opinion meant a lot to me. She was, in many way, like a parent to me, so it was like I had become a major disappointment to her.

Later, in many ways, she became a major disappointment to me (for various reasons), but she continued to call me an art snob and she continually put down the fact that I was an artist, citing that she generally had a dislike of artists. So sometimes the insults weren’t directed at me personally, but I took them personally since I was an artist.

Well this last time I heard the comment, it came from her, but she told me that it was someone else that was calling me an art snob! How do you like that?

So after peeling myself off the floor about it, because of course, I don’t want to come off like an art snob, I started to think about this a lot more analytically. I mean, am I an art snob? Maybe I am!

So I looked up the word “snob.” The dictionary was a little too simplified, so I went to Wikipedia and it said:

A snob is a person who believes a correspondence between status and human worth. The term also refers to a person who believes that some people are inherently inferior to him or her for any one of a variety of reasons, including real or supposed intellect, wealth, education, ancestry, power, physical strength, class, taste, beauty, nationality, fame, extreme success of a family member or friend, etc. Often this form of snobbery reflects the snob’s personal attributes. For example, a common snobbery of the affluent is the belief that wealth is either the cause or result of superiority, or both.

I took a good look at myself and evaluated whether or not I had these attributes and the only one I could relate to was the beginning, (a person who believes a correspondence between status and human worth) which is not easy to admit to. However, I am well aware it is because I have major issues of self-worth. It is because I grew up with parents that instilled these kinds of ideas in me about not being worth a damn unless I could accomplish something “important,” and even then, it was never enough.

But as far as the rest of the definition, I feel just the opposite, and I mean the polar opposite. I don’t even feel comfortable around people of wealth, or status, and especially smart people – I feel like the stooge in the room. I am very insecure and know that I have a long way to go when learning anything about art, art history, technique, color, theory and all that stuff. I am not an academic. I’m practically an outsider trying to pass as an insider so I can make a career in art. I hardly think my art is any good and go on tenacity and craftsmanship more than I go on any confidence that I have actual talent. And that’s the truth.

Isn’t it  so easy to often say that someone else is pretentious? Or a snob? Just because they have a lot of accomplishments? Maybe it’s because you don’t really know them. Or maybe that being an anti-snob is the worst kind of snob of all!

2 thoughts on “The Anti-snob

  1. chris clermont May 30, 2015 / 4:49 pm

    You are the pure and extreme definition of an artist. The great ones never went to college or studied at Otis/Parsons or anything. They just got on with it and did it. Art is human expression at its very core. Without that, art is reduced simply to media production for some reason other than personal self-expression, and that is almost the definition of “pretentious.”

    My feeling is a “friend” purge is in order. Some people may want to be your friend but are not willing or able to “be” your friend which requires some type of commitment.

  2. chris clermont May 30, 2015 / 4:52 pm

    Some people can’t accept that perhaps you know what you are doing or talking about because you have done it. Now they want to call you an “art snob.” This makes their issue your problem. Don’t let them do it! That is the behavior of sociopaths. Get thee from me, satan!!!

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