Which, of course, is both the key to art and the reason why we so often suspect its practitioners of being either indolent, if they can't work, or insensitive, if they can't stop. Morse, familiar to more people as an inventor than as an artist, meant his painting to be a teaching tool, but when he brought it back home to the United States, it was not well-received. Bitter, he abandoned art for invention. The Morse code and the telegraph soon followed. Maybe if it were more difficult to declare oneself an artist, we all might get more respect.
Medicine weeds out the amateurs far better than art does.
I appointed myself. All artists do, but for me there's no comfort in that knowledge. Starting when I was a girl, I kept a diary, had pen pals. . . . As if writing were an instinctual urge over which I've never had much control. It's hard to justify living the life of an artist, but self-doubt does decrease over time.