Mandy over at Messy Canvas has written a very entertaining post about the constant mental dialogue she has with her internal critic over whether she's an artist or not:

"I think I would love to be an artist."
"No, no you're not artist material."
"Well, that may be, but I would like to be one anyway."
"You can't be an artist, for a number of reasons: You can't support yourself and be an artist. You can't possibly take time away from all of life's responsibilities to just sit and play with art. And you can't just go around calling yourself an artist. You must be deemed one."
"Hmmmm, I hadn't thought of all that."
"Yeah, I didn't figure."
"Did I mention that creating makes me come alive?"
"Did I mention that creating makes you go broke and is a silly waste of time?"
"Yes, yes, you did make that point. And I suppose it's a good one."

Read the rest here.

Sorry for the short absence, I've been meaning to post but I was busy with other things. Anyway, back to our regular scheduled programming.

If you haven't seen it before, George Lucas In Love is a wonderfully affectionate parody/tribute. Made in 1999, it's only 9 minutes long and if you've ever seen and enjoyed Star Wars you'll probably be charmed by it, I certainly was.

Lindsay asked in comments how I find the stuff I link to. I find most of the artists I feature in posts or links from other artist's blogs, I read about 20 or so art blogs and a few of my favourites can be found on the links page of this site. But sometimes I'll find stories or things out in the offline world too. This link is a good example, my partner had seen it before and noticed it was on the Sci-Fi Channel so he called me through and made me sit down and watch it. He also emails me stories about art that he's seen on the web too.

I have a folder on my computer where I store webpages about stories that interest me, which is useful if I don't have time to make a blog post instantly.

On other occasions I've found artists in the newspaper or in art magazines and then looked them up online. I'm always disappointed if I can't find anything about them.

I do think that having some kind of professional visibility online is increasingly important for artists and it's something that I plan to write more about soon. In the meantime, I'd like to encourage any artists reading this who don't already have an online presence, to get themselves a Flickr account and put up some images of their work. You could use a different photo hosting site, there are lots out there, but I adore Flickr because of its community aspects and ease of use. When you sign up, using your real name in your username or your profile will mean that you're searchable in Google. It's a really cheap and easy way to make a sort of mini website of your artwork, without all the scariness or expense of making a website. I've also found the Flickr community to be very welcoming and supportive of art and there are plenty of groups over there dedicated to discussing art and showing other members your work. It can really be a fantastic way to promote your art; according to my beloved Google Analytics, it's my third biggest source of visitors to this site while over on The Diary Project blog, it's the largest source.