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The Delusional Artists subreddit was created in April, 2013, and it has blossomed into quite the impressive art gallery since then. It currently has 514k members, or “pieces of art available” as they call them, and members are constantly uploading artwork they spot online and in person by artists who might need to have a reality check. There are several topics that commonly come up in the group, including “deluded artist”, “meta'', “high price”, “aBsTrAcT”, “arrogant artist”, and simply “bad art”.
The titles are relatively self-explanatory, of course, but they give some indication of what the most common examples of delusional artists entail. For example, it is not uncommon to find a piece being sold online, perhaps on Facebook Marketplace or Ebay, that does not look like it took very much skill to create… That’s fine if an artist wants to give away their work for free, but when a marker drawing that looks like it was done by a 7-year-old is being listed for $400? That’s the perfect piece to be shared on Delusional Artists.
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To gain some insight on this topic from an artist, we reached out to Jill Arwen Posadas, a professional painter who specializes in depicting monsters. First, we asked Jill if she believes anyone can be an artist. “Honestly, I think anyone can be an artist,” she told Bored Panda. “That is, everyone has it in them to have ideas and to find creative ways to express or communicate those ideas, which is what I think an artist is.”
“I guess the question for this article is whether anyone can become a career artist, or, the term I know is ‘practicing artist’,” Jill explained. “For this, I'd say it takes more than just having ideas. You'd have to really commit and really work hard to hone your skills, and there's just no shortcut to that. And when I say commit, as in, you're still going to push on and continue to create even when things get hard. For example, people don't like your work, you're not able to sell, that kind of thing. Not everyone is able to commit or is willing to work hard.”
We also asked Jill what she thinks qualifies someone as a “delusional artist”. “I feel a little weird answering this question because I'm pretty sure there are people out there who would call me a delusional artist,” Jill told Bored Panda. She noted a personal example of how one of her past pieces might have looked like it could earn a spot on this list, but even if it wasn’t her best work, she was not on Facebook Marketplace attempting to sell that piece for $600. “I guess, it could be said that all artists are delusional in one way or another,” she noted.
“For this article, we might define a delusional artist as someone who didn't exactly commit or work hard as I mentioned in my previous answer,” Jill told Bored Panda. “Thinking that they could put in the barest minimum (or maybe even zero) effort and maybe (I say this delicately) make some easy money by selling their work for maybe a lot more than it might be worth. Delusional as in ‘they think their work is worth that much’.”
Jill explained that she might not deem these artists as delusional, but instead, “Either they are relatively inexperienced, or, maybe they are up to something shady.”
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“The former I would say are inexperienced because maybe they haven't had enough exposure to more art or the art world,” Jill explained. “I'm not saying I myself have seen it all or know everything -- I'm just saying that maybe if the artists who made the portraits that maybe could've been made better, had been exposed to other, ‘better’ portraits, then maybe those artists would have known that maybe they should've waited until their work had developed more, before promoting it and offering it to others.”
“The latter whom I described as might be doing something shady? These would be the people who I mentioned might be just out to make some easy money by selling something quick and easy. I say ‘people’ because I think calling them ‘artists’ might be, to put it gently, a misnomer,” Jill noted.
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We also asked Jill what she personally thinks are the most important factors that make someone an artist. “I still think the most important factors that make an artist are having ideas or a ‘message’, and finding creative ways to express or share or communicate that message or those ideas,” she told Bored Panda.
“But you also have to work super, super, super hard to express yourself the very best way that you can,” Jill continued. “Whether you study to do this or you teach yourself, you have to put in the hours and the work. No matter the medium, traditional or digital, no matter the form, painting, sculpture, even poetry, music, cooking -- it involves hours and hours and hours of practice. And not giving up no matter what. That's what makes an artist.”
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“Maybe ‘delusional artists’ as we define them in this article need to ask themselves why they are doing what they're doing,” Jill pointed out. “Are they making art to express an idea? Become better at what they're doing/develop their skills/hone their technique? Or get a kick out of the idea that they can put two lines together and sell it as non-rep (i.e. abstract) art/put a rock on a string and sell it as conceptual art? Like, ‘I put one over somebody and got paid for it too’?”
“I'm not saying no artist should ever make something for money,” Jill added. “Artists should get paid fairly for their work. Nor am I saying that non-representational art like single stroke paintings or conceptual art (like found object art) don't deserve the price tags that they have in galleries -- because you don't know how long the artist had to work to make that single stroke (not to mention the materials, etc), and you don't know the skill or the ideation involved in making the installation/choosing the found object art.”
“But what I am saying and what I would say to the ‘artists’ is to get out there and study,” Jill told Bored Panda. “Get more of the right exposure, grow and develop as an artist more. And to their ‘potential collectors’, well, I can't tell you what to do with your money but ‘buyer beware’.”
If you’d like to check out some of Jill’s wonderful art, be sure to visit her website right here.
