"Ix Chel as a Young Woman" by April Fontaine

Certainly, like most artists creating has always been a part of my life. A lot of artists like to date their profession back to childhood when they held a crayon at the age of X. But the truth is just about all of us held a crayon at least once in our early childhood, and no doubt enjoyed it immensely. I am slightly less sentimental and instead note that it was probably as I got older that I appeared to be more interested in creating art (and other things) than were my peers. And began to get a lot of gratification from it, beyond the seemingly universal gleeful finger painting and eating of paste, that is.

Before I got the notion of doing art a little more seriously, I saw myself pretty much that way, as someone who was more interested in art and creating than were my peers. I didn't really see it as anything lofty or special, but rather as something I did to keep busy, feel good, etc. Something that was just for me occasionally resulting in a gift for a dear friend or family member. A most gratifying and (as I found later) occasionally lucrative hobby. I didn't attend art school, mostly because no one but my high school art teacher found it to be a worthy endeavor. And over time I was convinced of this fact as well. Over the years I was lucky enough to have made a little money with my art, but it was mostly "on the side," and I never really thought of it as a vocation or way of life, certainly not a viable one. That was for the trust fund babies, the well connected, and occasionally the uber talented - none of which I considered myself.

Until one fine day I happened upon an online artists collective known as EBSQ. And what I found there was almost the antithesis of everything I believed the art world to be. Very few trust fund babies, almost no-one well connected, though uber talented, of course. In general, real people trying to make real art, under circumstances ranging from the normal every day American stereotypical experiences to those extremely difficult; often medically and/or socio-economically challenged. A range I was quite content to find myself somewhere in the middle of, and felt I could blend nicely. Artistically there were no juries, no critics checking credentials at the door, no gallery owners deciding what their clients should buy. "No gatekeepers of taste" was our mantra. It was in essence a reaction and virtual revolution against these perceived gatekeepers; the so called "insiders" of the art world, working diligently it was thought, to keep the rest of us out. And well, no one could ever say that I don't enjoy a little revolution and rebellion now and then. So join and crusade I did, developing a much greater respect and dedication to art and creating it as I went along.

The truth was that it never occurred to me up to that point in time that one could call him or herself an artist and be taken seriously by anyone. Now I see it as almost the art equivalent of the American dream. That if you have the talent and/or ability (how much of it really depends on who your audience is,) the energy, and the chutzpa, then at least some of the barriers you might have allowed to hold you back simply melt away. And interestingly enough, the removal of these barriers seems to have had a similar effect on art lovers as well. That as the self-representing artist movement has grown, so too it seems has a unique group of art collectors. Those who, similar to many artists, might have felt closed out of the larger art world, felt intimidated or out of place in the traditional "gallery system." Real living and breathing art collectors who may have never approached a traditional gallery, and as such never purchased a single piece of original art. Not just enriching their own lives, but the lives of real living breathing artists, and dare I suggest, the art world itself. Because art of all things should not be about elitism and exclusion, but ideally about openness and diversity. The birth and growth of the self-representing artist movement helps that happen, and I am honored to have played a part in it, no matter how small.