Privilege
I signed up for the painting workshops and if anything I got to see how people did their crafts. The hosts were gracious, the participants were friendly, but being enmeshed in the community for extended time showed me just how privileged getting to treat a hobby as purely a hobby and a money sink had become.
It seemed like a foregone conclusion that if you dabble in visual arts in any capacity you would have an Instagram account. And maybe Youtube. I hadn't gotten such bemused reaction from people for saying I'm not on social media for quite a while now. Everyone was doing "content" all day, camera strapped on their necks for POV streaming to traditional point-and-shoots. I accidentally walked through a couple shorts because I didn't realize they were filming. I helped someone do a sketchbook tour by providing the hands flipping the pages off-camera. People were toting around goods sent by companies and talking about review opportunities, Patreon, selling originals... They were all nice, they helped each other getting good shots for their accounts, and they seemed to have fun, but holy heck was that disorienting.
I suppose there's an explanation for this. Excluding the kids brought along by their parents, people who joined a public sketching group would tend to be more confident in their abilities, or at least confident in themselves. I turned a series of my drawings into a zine (free with option to donate, and I did get one buyer...), so I'm not one to talk. I toyed with the idea to compile another artzine, but seeing all of this... It feels nicer to just keep these to myself. I don't know. It's nice that people are sharing arts and could live from their arts, just... the way it's materializing feels a bit dystopian to me.
Speaking of the workshops, I was initially miffed when someone suggested I attend the basics class instead, seeing how atrocious my handling of the brush was and the way I blended. It was fair, honestly, I did sign up for the basics class knowing my fundamentals were all over the place, but the moment they saw me doing that was also the moment I felt cute and decided to try a brush twice the size I usually use and in a form I never used before. They didn't know, they were not being a dick about it, but it stung for a bit.
I suppose I was a bit sensitive because I got myself to a point where I became too loose for the precise people and too detailed for the loose people, so I felt a bit unmoored when talking with the instructors. My self-study also brought me to a point where I was pretty competent in one aspect and extremely uninformed in another in such uneven way that the instructors weren't sure where I stood and how best to instruct me. I would have to do a lot if I want to fill the gap, but at least now I know what I'm looking for.
The workshops attracted mainly students and retirees, so money was tight. I heard a lot of them expressing gratitude that they got to try artist quality materials in the workshops (all provided for the duration of the classes) and couldn't help but wince a bit because in spite of my level of ability I possess "the good stuff", a benefit of getting into the hobby at my age. When I was a student, I too couldn't afford them, staring longingly from the store display. A decade later, one year in and I have a studio.
So much to mull over.
My friends assured me it was alright, that they had fun using my materials when they came over, and my roommate remarked they saw no problem since they would find me painting whenever they swung by. That I clearly used them, enjoyed using them.
I'll try not taking things for granted.