Tell Me I'm An Artist Quotes

“30% of an artist’s life is devoted to pretending you like your own ideas
10% is finding enjoyment in making huge irreparable mistakes
6% is going along with other people’s interpretations of your art
5% is believing your own bullshit even as you’re in the process of making it up
10% is trying to view your art from your current love interest’s perspective
9% is keeping a journal by your bed
5% is remembering the feeling of being loudly dissed by the person you most idolized in third grade
5% is finding something obscure to reference constantly
20% is ignoring the people who like your work”
― Chelsea Martin, Tell Me I'm An Artist

“Every decision felt like it was to be engraved on a plaque to be placed under a statue commemorating my shittiness, a long list of bad traits under an emboldened title: WE KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING AND YES THIS GIRL SUCKS. I spent years of my life thinking this way and was just in this moment starting to realize how self-important that was. Nobody was watching me, waiting to see what I did. There weren’t any answers to steal. I didn’t have to be good or bad or an artist or a genius and I didn’t have to decide anything right now. All I had to do right now was make the terrible art I said I was going to make. Integrity was something I could offer the world, even if I had nothing else. Even if I didn’t know who I wanted to be. I should just do it so it could be done.”
― Chelsea Martin, Tell Me I'm An Artist

“I feared leaving things behind only because I feared moving forward. I feared finding myself somewhere else and having to figure out who I was there. I didn’t have to be the person I had always been.”
― Chelsea Martin, Tell Me I'm An Artist

“What if, instead of feeling guilty about everything all the time, I just . . . didn’t?”
― Chelsea Martin, Tell Me I'm An Artist

“Making art that sucks is the only path to making art that doesn’t suck.' —Me not making art.”
― Chelsea Martin, Tell Me I'm An Artist

“Maybe Art was Real Life and Real Life was Art.”
― Chelsea Martin, Tell Me I'm An Artist

“Having fun with my friends was giving me spontaneous, hot terror.”
― Chelsea Martin, Tell Me I'm An Artist

“I think it would be nice if not every single thing that happened to me turned into an emotionally complex personality-defining event I'd have to carefully decode for years to come. I think that would be very pleasant.”
― Chelsea Martin, Tell Me I'm An Artist

“Maybe struggling to keep up with people who were doing better than me in every way was making me miserable. Maybe I'd be happier if I wasn't trying to be happy. Maybe life would be easier if I just let it wash over me like a wave instead of trying to claw my way out through sand and muck in an attempt to get to a probably imaginary beach where one can supposedly view the waves of the ocean without being pummeled by them”
― Chelsea Martin, Tell Me I'm An Artist