I am an artist. You probably are too.

In the beginning of Andrea Kreuzhauge's documentary of the project 1000 Journals, instigator Some Guy cites a rather likely unscientific fact that if you were to ask a classroom of kindergarteners who was an artist, all hands would fly into the air. Pose the same question to high schoolers and perhaps one or two would identify.

I might doubt the scientific validity, but the point is nothing if not staggering: where have our artists gone?

Prior to seeing Kreuzhauge's film, if you were to ask me, I would deny being a writer. When I think of the word, I think the New Yorker, I think Hemingway, publishing and working and writing and being read.

But, really, I write almost obsessively. Not much of it creative, profound, legible or fit to be read. But it is true. Sooner or later that counts for something, truth. Truth in action, words in action. If I am what I do, then I am, in fact, part writer.

I think a lot about a lot of words. Words I say, I write, I hear, I read. I always thought words were real. I've recently become brightly aware that often times words are just letters, just symbols, and can be very empty strokes and tones, words as words, oaths or actions.

I am going to make my first confession: I think I am a writer, I am an artist. By saying it, I want to back it up by being it. I am no Hemingway, I am no New Yorker, but maybe I can bring back a bit of my kindergarten shameless and be proud of my stories like I was of stick figure drawings of family and friends. I hope you will too. And I hope you will share it with me.
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