So… I was just asked… (Patreon)

How did you know you were an artist?

That question was a rather enchanting one, and I was really taken aback at how I would answer. Because… at first, I wanted to say that, for a long while… I wasn’t really comfortable with the thought of being an artist.

I can’t tell you when ‘you’ know that ‘you’ are an artist, as I can’t tell your development. I can only speak for myself, and I think that was the point of the question, but I just want to be completely certain.

    When I draw, I feel relaxed. I can at times enter a center of concentration so deep that I feel like going deaf and time becomes irrelevant, but even I need to either spice up or do other stuff in order to function.
   Either games, strolls, socializing, sex or confounding over the existence and the vastness that is the enormity of the universe itself, and ponder why… why on earth did a thing as annoying as Mosquitoes stumble into existence…?

I am an artist because I know what I am, and by trying out other stuff. Call it selection. 

I am older, and I have tried other things. I am not academically qualified according to the standards set by a society that values dogmatic learning over intellectual curiosity. When your ability to crush math numbers or somehow know all the chemicals known to man becomes the standard of intelligence, then… a lot is left out.

I am not saying I am a genius, because I have never been thoroughly tested for that. I know I am not all dumb, but more than anything, I know I learn something new every day, and that is wonderful to me. 

I am not athletic, mostly because of my genetic pool that somehow decided to both curse me to have asthma and well shaped feet well suited for a sprinter.  

And as much as I love acting and singing, I do not appreciate fame and the ‘curse’ it brings. I enjoy being private and have no face to the public so to speak (no hint towards you my darlings♥️, I enjoy your attention and adore your interest. I am simply very shy♥️)

Life is a journey and the more you live the more you learn, mainly about yourself, and your role in the world around you. 

I am an artist, because I have realized it’s something I enjoy, I am (maybe🤭) damn good at it, and until recently (a few years ago) I wasn’t aware I was meant to be proud of it, and of my skill that has taken literally a lifetime of struggle to achieve. 

When I wake up (I wont say every morning, because my schedule keeps moving time around the day😂), I get ideas for art. When I walk and talk, I get ideas for art. When I cook and eat I get ideas for art. 

And one of the biggest revelations in my life, was that all art isn’t meant to be pretty or perfect or even to be more than a simple sketch. 

You are allowed to fail. You are meant to fail. You are only learning by failure.

Failure is a great teacher. Humiliation is not. Bear that in mind my darlings ♥️

Mistakes makes you into the better artist. You only learn to do it right, by doing it wrong.

(Who would have known that Eddy, from Ed Edd n’ Eddy would actually have a life lesson in all it’s foolishness 😳 No bashing, it’s easy one of my favorite shows ever)

It’s evolution in a minor and more complex system. 

What works stays, what doesn’t work is trashed. Simple. Only difference is, I get to decide what goes and what doesn’t go. 

In Japan I met one of my fathers friends. An artist pushing well past 70.
Daniel Kelly. A magnificent artist, and one funny dude. We were alike in so many ways, and he was really fun to hang with. That man was a product of his time, but he was absolutely amazing. 

He was an artist, in every way shape and form that I could see myself as, one day. Living every day as if it were the last. Making whatever he wanted, because he enjoyed it. Living life according to one simple principle. 

Life is a journey, death is the goal. It’s what’s in between that makes it all important. 

An artist is a person that lives in the moment. And sees every day for what it is. A new day. New art. New beginnings. New experiences.

As an artist I am sometimes surprised and even amazed in the interpretations that an outsider sees in my work.

And as an artist, I am less interested in other artists work, and more in their production. Which is why I love production videos. I love to see how other artists work. Not for comparison, but for reflection.

Japan lies half the world away from my country, yet I find more similarities with the Japanese and the Danish than I do with the Danish and the Americans. And I have been both places and been able to see it.

Sure one trip to Japan doesn’t make me an expert in the culture of Japan, but I can only speak out of my own experience. I might be wrong, and in that case, I will alter my viewpoint and opinion. You are meant to grow with the facts of life.

I knew I was an artist, the day I learned I enjoyed it. I live to make art. I make art to live.

If I can’t draw, I become uncomfortable and unsociable. Annoyed and irritated. Frustrated even.
I become about as enjoyable as a starving polar bear…

But let me draw for 1 hour, and I am as huggable as a teddy bear. ♥️

I am passionate, easy to anger and easy to happiness. I have been to therapy and they say I am just passionate about the stuff I love.

I cry and mourn my loved ones. I love and celebrate time with family. I bleed when I trip on the ground. I sweat when I make exercise.

But mostly…

I observe.

Perhaps you feel it too.

Every spring, it feels like life returns to my chest.

Every summer, I wish for it to last forever.

Every autumn, new thoughts enter with the cooling air.

and Every winter, I huddle up in my little cave.

Life is life.

And as an artist… well… I don’t really know how to tell the difference… because I haven’t enjoyed anything else as much as I have being an artist.

My life evolved around a desire that sprung out early in my life that I enjoyed drawing. When your family accepts it and indulge your efforts, then you can become something, even with some doodles.

I don’t know if this is a puncture or an inspirational writing. Neither was ever intended.

I simply felt, that, there was something to be said from me.

And if this reaches the ones who perhaps have had the question for a while but, never had the time to ask it, then… here is the answer. ♥️

Yours truly
Hammer