The first version of this article was much, much longer.

I rambled about a dialectic between artists from different historical periods - how trying to measure up to the past has produced new neuroses in each rising generation of artists, and how the following generation always repeated the pattern.

From the great masters, through a few layers of artistocratic dilettantes, into the modernists, then the post modernists, and then to us - to me, at least, and maybe to you.

The desire to create enough beauty that it becomes part of our outward identity is seemingly universal, and it drives everyone a bit insane.

Im not sure Im not an artist, but I dont think its something I want to try to be anymore.

It is the nature of the thing that to claim to be "an artist" is somewhat disqualifying from the fact itself - whether you are is an estimation other people make.

If you want to wait around for the world to recognize you in that way, you can, but it may be a longer wait than you want, and in the meantime the paint is drying on the palette, and the greenstuff factory is shuttering.

When you wonder "Am I An Artist", you're not asking about yourself, you're questioning whether you belong in the midst of people you admire.

That's up to them, and most artists I know have at least some non-artist friends, and at least one artist-enemy. Point being, your art could get your in the door, but it wont always get your in the scene.

Stop worrying about it, and make stuff.