I’m An Artist

One of the greatest internal debates as an artist, illustrator, writer, or any form of creator, is: What is my style?

At a later date I would love to get into more of the nitty gritty details of my year abroad and what it was like studying art in Italy and what I learned within the walls of the Accademia.

But what I learned this year about myself as an artist extends significantly past those marble walls. Now look, I would be lying if I said I didn’t think I would move to Italy for my year at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna and come out the other side an entirely new artist. An artist who was certain about my artistic identity, certain about my favorite medium, well versed in my go to color palettes, and had a clearly defined style and brand.

But what I found instead what something a lot less confined and a lot more intimate.

I look at the works I created this year, and I feel a sense of pride, but it’s not pride for the pieces for themselves. I don’t look at these works and see my greatest masterpieces. Instead, I see all of the chicken scratch sketches, the journal entries, and all of the collage and mood boards I curated throughout my year, because for each painting that I came home with, there were about 2-3 attempted/failed pieces, journal pages filled with brainstorms and random designs, and about 5 conversations with my friends and classmates about my next ideas and what was and wasn’t working.

But even with all of that, an entire year of that, I still don’t feel I came out of the year with my expected end result. But was I do see, is progress.

I see trial and error.

I see experimentation and freedom.

I see a younger version of me that had NO idea what to paint when I finally had the time and freedom to paint whatever I wanted. I see the version of myself that had to walk into an Italian art store and try to maneuver an entirely new language and country with none of the supplies and brands I had become so familiar with at home.

So what did I do? Well. I bought every medium I could possibly image, anything I had dabbled in and wanted to spend more time, gouache, acrylic, oil, oil pastels, chalk pastels, oil sticks, colored pencils, markers, and all the paper and canvases that go with those mediums. Basically the only thing I had brought with me, were my 5 year old watercolors and my various brushes (watercolor, acrylic, and oil) that I couldn’t bear to part with and didn’t want to rebuy.

I promised myself that I would give myself the opportunity to experiment with every medium. That I wouldn’t let my lack of access to supplies strain on my artistic process and experimentation. That I wasn’t going to force myself to stick with one medium, because just because I had previously favored acrylic, I wanted to give myself the space to become a different artist with different preferences. But what I wasn’t expecting, was that when I was finally back in my new room in my new apartment with my new art supplies, I would feel so, stuck.

I felt so stuck. I had never asked myself the question: If I could paint anything, what would I paint.

The first couple months, honestly the entire first semester, I felt artistically stuck. I was trying to figure out what I was as an artist, what my identity was, what my style was.

A lot of internal reflection and thinking, and not a lot of creating.

This feeling of being stuck, combined with a couple humbling interactions with my professors, left me feeling incredibly unmotivated and being incredibly hard not just on myself, but on the pieces I was creating.

I had idealized for so long that I would get to art school and the art would just flow, but I thought and analyzed to the point that I suffocated my creativity.

I was trying so hard to understand the meaning and bigger picture behind my pieces, that I stopped being an artist. I stopped experimenting. One of my favorite artistic quotes comes from Tyler, the Creator. In an interview in 2025 he said, “Create like a child, edit like a scientist”. THIS. Reconnecting with this quote changed everything for me.

Because I wasn’t creating like a child and editing like a scientist. I was planning like a scientist, creating like a scientist, and I wasn’t even reaching the editing process. In fact the editing process was more like a brutally honest and negative self critique series.

But in the moment, I wasn’t seeing what I see now. Because once I started to let go, once I started to play, I started to see how my expectations of who I wanted to be as an artist, as what I thought it meant to be an artist, was limiting my ability to become the artist and creator I wanted to become.

This is where artistic style comes in. Because I always thought that my artistic style was bigger scale canvases of detailed and colorful scenes in acrylic and oil. But I all of a sudden the big pieces felt overwhelming. Acrylic felt stiff. Oil felt like a never-ending drying process that let to starting pieces I never finished.

It wasn’t artist block. I was still creating. I was doing smaller watercolor pieces, doodles, and trying new palette combos in oil pastel. But to me, those weren’t who I was trying to be as an artist. Those smaller pieces didn’t align with this assumed artistic identity I had created for myself.

As I look back, this phase can be be defined as me downplaying the creativity and ebb and flow of the artistic process. OF COURSE I had an expectation of who I would become as an artist. OF COURSE I was going to feel like all of my artistic knowledge in the past meant nothing and I was starting over from zero.

I can’t express how strange it is to try and create abroad when everything you have every needed and used to create, the materials, the space, the surrounding inspiration, was different.

I just kept trying to force myself into creating these larger oil and acrylic pieces. But what was really drawing my attention was some pen sketches, chunky oil pastel on paper, and travel watercolor illustrations. But with each smaller piece that didn’t feel like it was contributing to anything, and even the bigger pieces that were sometimes really overwhelming and I didn’t really like, I could feel something connecting.

I don’t have to pick one style. I don’t have to pick one color palette. I don’t have to pick my favorite medium or size. I don’t have to pick. I don’t have to pick.

One of my favorite conversations and artistic breakthroughs was at a painting coffee date with my friend Maia, we were talking about artistic styles and I voiced my frustration that I still hadn’t figured out what medium I wanted to attach myself to.

She responded with, “I don’t what to pick one medium, that sounds boring. Like how boring would it be to have your one medium and style figured out at our age, that would be so pointless to me”.

So even though I didn’t figure out my “style” or my “medium” this year, I did figure this out:

I know what kind of watercolor paper I like. I know that I actually do like watercolor, and I am good at it. I know that even though oil painting feels more professional, I still like acrylic paints more (mostly because I think I move to quickly for oil paints hehe). I learned that I love creating digital collages. I learned that I LOVE TO WRITE.

I LOVE to wear a cute outfit and experiment with fashion.

I love finding little treasures in my travels and collaging them into a scrapbook journal.

I learned that I DO love working with bright colors.

I learned that I DO love painting the ocean.

I confirmed that the small streets and flower filled windows of Italy will always be a source of inspiration.

I learned, that not everything has to be a masterpiece.

And I learned that everything I just listed, accumulates into who I am as an artist.

My environmental studies, my interest in sustainable agriculture, my passion for fashion, those are not separate parts of my life, they are ALL parts of my identity as an artist.

And most importantly, everything I just listed, IS ART.

Because heres’ the deal: Even when I’m not painting, I am an artist.

It’s who I am. It’s in every single little action. It’s in the way I sign my name. The way I hum my favorite song.

I was trying so hard to define my artistic identity, that I stopped believing in the creative fabric woven into my existance.

I am a firm believer that we are all artists. We are all creatives. You might not paint, but do you write? You might hate oil paints, but have you tried soft pastels? You might not play guitar, but I know your closet is color coordinated and you love to pull out that orange purse.

This is what my year looked like. I didn’t figure out my artistic identity, but I did figure out who I am. But how BORING does certainty sound? Certainty and art don’t really go together, do they? I know what makes me tick. I know what makes waking up in the morning worth it.

And that is tied directly to who I am as an artist. So while I still feel those masterpieces I had manifested before my Italian experience are itching to be created, I can guarantee that what I would have created a year ago, 6 months ago, or even 3 months ago, would be absolutely different than what I would create now. And that is exactly how it should be.

Because no matter what I create, no matter how big or small, inked across a journal or chalked up on a canvas, it is all tied up into who I am.

And every pair of jorts, kitten heels, and sunglasses, and every half filled journal is a representation of my artistic self.

Because I am an artist.

And everything I am is art.