Craftversations is back, this time with Daniel Vincent Gordh! Watch as we make wall art, discuss our experiences as a part of The LBD, the perils of acting as a career, and of course, @theashleyclements. Stay tuned for part two coming Friday!

This one was so good. Really looking forward to part 2.

I really appreciated the conversation around the (false) idea that one day you will “make it”. I’m forever looking at other illustrators who are more successful than me, who have signed with agencies, who have books coming out and… it’s hard not to be jealous. And it’s hard not to think that “I’ll stop being anxious about my life and think of myself as a real artist when X happens”. I know it’s a lie but it’s hard not to think it all the same.

BUT I can look at these guys right now and say that they /are/ actors. That’s easy for me to see. I have no idea how often they make money from acting and, when they do, how much. But that’s really irrelevant to whether I see them as actors.

So if I can see them as actors, regardless of money or mainstream acknowledgement, can I see myself as an illustrator, regardless of money or mainstream acknowledgement?

I’ve had a somewhat similar experience a few different times in connection with (non-artistic, non-actorly) career changes. There was getting dropped in as an emergency-credentialed high school sub with no training right out of college. Later there was the shift from my then-career as a writer/editor to being a web developer/programmer when the commercial Internet took off. In each case I experienced a certain amount of imposter syndrome.

Looking back, I don’t think that self-doubt did me any good. It was just an extra burden I carried while I figured out what I needed to know. I always felt like a failure, because I was always dealing with challenges at the limit of my ability. I was measuring myself against the most-capable people around me, and I always came up short.

I think a more accurate perspective would have been that I was a teacher, and a programmer, from day one. (Admittedly, a really crappy one in each case.) I was doing it. The next day I did it better. And that process just continued, and continues, until today.

Something that helped was getting positive feedback from people I respected in the fields I was trying to enter. That meant a lot to me in the early going, and still does now. Even if there’s a side of me that will always feel unqualified, I can look at their praise and say, okay, I may not think I’m very good, but they think I’m okay.