When does an artist get to be called an artist? Anne Truitt explored the labels in her diary seven years in the making, Daybook: The Journal of an Artist. Maria Popova over at Brain Pickings looks at Truitt’s work and the “existential discomfort” at facing her life’s retrospective. Truitt wrote:
The “just me” reaction was, I think, an instinctive disavowal of the social role of the artist. A life-saving disavowal. I refused, and still refuse, the inflated definition of artists as special people with special prerogatives and special excuses. If artists embrace this view of themselves, they necessarily have to attend to its perpetuation. They have to live it out. Their time and energy are consumed for social purposes. Artists then make decisions in terms of a role defined by others, falling into their power and serving to illustrate their theories.
