The Imposter.

Hello! If you have just stumbled across this little blog of mine, its lovely to meet you. I’m Amy and I started writing this in 2010. It was a mishmash of stories and images from my life, mostly inspired from the public library where I work.  When I started the blog, I really didn't have much of an idea about how or what to publish. Social Media was still a little bit of a mystery to me. I loved how fast I could send and receive messages across the sea (having an email account in my early 20’s was liberating) but all these years later, it still felt like a scene from that Sandra Bullock movie Gravity. Floating around in an endless void until all of a sudden you’re in a meteor shower of information and trolls coming out of nowhere, breaking your shit and killing George Clooney.

I was already a visual artist and I loved making everything from small scale illustrations to large paintings. But I wanted more. I wanted more of the feeling you get when you sit down and make the memory of an every day event beautiful, or funny or sad or ridiculous. I wanted to write.

About eight year ago, I deleted everything. I highlighted every last post and put them into a draft folder. Suffering from what I now know as a nasty case of Imposter Syndrome, I thought everyone knew what they were doing except me. That I wasn’t a “real” artist, in visual work, let alone this writing project and one day someone would knock on my door and publicly expose me as being everything I was terrified I was.

One day I read a review on a local Art shop that sold my work and in the article it named me as “the next big thing.” What does that mean? That my work could be Prom Queen? Or that my work could be more like a British It Girl? Were my illustrations really the equivalent of Gigi Hadid? I felt excited but also really really sweaty. Surely the Imposter Police would be on their way immediately. Also, I had no idea how to become this predicted “Next Big thing” and am fairly certain that I did not. So what does that mean? Who did I let down? Myself or the World? Do I apologize to the reporter for ruining their prediction? or do I get to relax now that I’ve managed to doge the Imposter Police once again by swiftly under achieving.

Stuck in a loop of comparing myself to “everything and everyone”, (Instagram is wonderful but also horrible), I decided my blog was simply not good enough and the solution was to just not put myself out there until I was ready (hint: that’s never.)

Since then I have grown a little, changed a little and read a lot. Turns out Imposter syndrome is fairly common and most artists will experience it or other similar debilitating fears at some stage of their working lives.  

So here I am. Not the next big thing (although you never know, wink.)But with a few re-posted oldies, some little pictures to illustrate them and another go at having some fun.

If you found your way here, I hope you enjoy a snippet of all the randomness and beauty and sad hilarious nature of life. And it’s mine, and no Police person (that’s right ladies, equality in my made up fear brigade) can that take away.

love amy x