I never felt the want or need to post my art online. It was something that just never interested me. I never thought my art was good enough to post, and I felt insecure seeing people younger than me being more technically skilled at art than myself. That reason further dissuaded me from allowing my art to escape the confines of my private Instagram and my mother’s private Facebook account. Even though I know that I’ve improved a lot since I first began at Marywood, there is still that lingering insecurity that I’m not good enough. I remember back in my first semester at Marywood, I was told that the only person I should be competing against is myself, and that everyone improves at their own rate. That was moderately comforting at the time, but it was still disheartening to see so many of my peers succeeding at art in ways that I just knew I couldn’t.

I am taking a Digital Design class this semester, and one of the graded assignments was to create an online account to share our art on. I was not fast to let my insecurities go, and for the sake of being dramatic, I was appalled that I would have to do something I was that uncomfortable with for a grade. As stupid as it sounds, I was more than content with my art being private- maybe it’s because that way, I feel as though I have more control over my art and who sees it. But I know that if I truly want a career as an artist, that is a terrible rabbit hole to fall down. I know I need to crawl back up and accept the fact that people are going to see my art, and that they are going to judge it (whether that judgment is good or bad).

In a way, I also wanted my art account to be anonymous were I to ever create one on a social media platform like Instagram. For some reason, the thought of my classmates or even professor seeing an Instagram account with my art populating it made me cringe. I suppose I’m weird like that, in the sense that I can better be myself when people don’t really know it’s me (ironic, considering I pour my heart out to this blog). As such, I felt more comfortable creating a website for myself. Yes, the Instagram algorithm sucks and no one would likely see my art as a result anyways, but creating a website felt like I was easing myself into the idea of getting my art out there- I’m starting out in the shallow end of the pool, so to speak (also, I did not want to deal with the bots that populate Instagram). 

So, I went with Google websites, because it’s free and easy. What would you know? I had fun making the website! It was nowhere near what coding actually is, but being behind the scenes and making functional ‘back’ buttons for my website reminded me of my high school coding class, which I loved! It was really easy to design the website how I wanted- the options were limited, sure, but I didn’t really care because I didn’t need it to be this perfectly unique thing. It displays my art, and it looks nice- that’s all that matters to me. Here is a screenshot of my website, and the ‘back’ button I’m so proud of. Feel free to not visit the website, because while I should be self-promoting, I’m not (also, there is an obvious lack of the link for said website). I just want to express my personal journey of trying new things, which in this instance, is something probably every artist my age has done by now.

I might get around to having an Instagram account one day, or maybe I’ll start off slow with Tumblr, but either way, I do think that bracing my fears and being forced to put my art online in a public way will be good for me in the long run.