NEW ART HERO. Holy cow! Maira Kalman!

Words not organizing themselves. Not coming out right. Go! Look! LOOK!
Maira Kalman!!!
From the statement on the Julie Saul Gallery website:"She has worked as a designer, author, illustrator and artist for more than thirty years without formal training. Her work is a narrative journal of her life and all its absurdities." Self taught! SELF TAUGHT! And successful and wonderful. Oh! Oh! Oh! And she embroiders! This is like what I intended to do- I thought I could use thread like a type of paint. Goache! Oh! and she paints dogs so wonderfully! Look at her pug painting- scroll down!
I have to go calm down.
***
Ok.
It's not jealousy. Usually, I get this sting in my heart and head- "They're living my life! There's none left for me!"
I am not getting that here. Instead, I feel...excited. Liberated. Her art touches me becuase it seems not to care what the outside world thinks of it. It seems like it's just a joyful expression of her true self. And I mean that not in a self-help book way, but as in really, truly, how she percieves things and expresses things. Unfiltered. It is what it is, and it is charming and wildly colorful. It seems like this really is enriching her life, like a...third hand, or a tail, just a neat extension, part of her.
I am a worrier. I worry that because I didn't go to art school, my art will never be good enough and never has any hope of being taken seriously. Even though it delights me, I find myself holding back, couching things, saying self depricating things when people mention it, see it, give me comments on it. Most especially in real life. It's very easy to pretend to be brave here. I worry my style is too 'cute', not enough this, not quite that enough. Not fitting in with the cool kids. I worry about getting older and not leaving a trail behind me. I worry all this and more.
But looking at her art, I am starting to see that maybe none of these worries are true, that these fears are not actually the way the world is or has to be. She's done so much, and it's wonderful, and she is not formally trained. Oh, man, do I love the artists who are not formally trained. (I love a lot of artists who are, but the ones who aren't give me hope.)
Seeing her art reminds me to just create. A lot. And to not worry about how other people percieve it.