Getting Validation For Your Art is Hard

What does it mean to and for you?

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

As a kid, validation for your art was a lot easier. It could have been as simple as your parent or guardian saying, “Great job!” They might have encouraged you to make more art. Or, maybe, they offered to put your art on the refrigerator.

In school, validation came in the form of grades. Do well, you’d get an “A”. This sort of validation came both objectively and subjectively. Art tends to be subjective more than objective.

As an adult, if you are a hobbyist the need for validation is not so dissimilar to what you needed as a kid. As a professional, however, validation tends to come in one specific, primary form.

Sales.

Selling your art is validation on multiple fronts. First and foremost, you make your living with every piece of art, book, or whatever you create that you sell. Secondly, you can point to your work as proof of your vocation.

There is, however, more to it than all that.

What makes you an artist?

Who says you are an artist? A writer? A painter? A crafter? Who makes that call?

Ultimately, you do. However, society loves to put people into boxes. They’re often arbitrary and — apart from being…