art art and undermining myself

My friend asked me why I don't sign my art. 

I have been perpetually going back and forth on whether I should sign my art, and then avoided making a decision by just not signing it and pretending that wasn't also a decision. 

On one hand, signing art shows that a human made this, that I made this. But on the other hand, maybe my signature would ruin the art - maybe it's me putting my ego above the art, or something. As I type that, I'm like, Emma, that is a stretch and you know it. I know that there isn't actually an argument that I buy into for not signing my art. The actual answer is that signing my art implies that I think what I've made is art, and it feels very vulnerable to put that out into the world. I guess there's a fear that someone would say "I love this thing you made, but unfortunately your name on it just ruins the entire thing", and like, if that did happen, cool, your energy is wrong for my art then. I don't even sign my name in full! I usually just put my initials and the year. 

I've written before about the journey from "I like to craft" to "I make art", and the power and freedom I have felt in owning that. And yet this signature thing throws me right back into the mindset of "I just make rinky dink lil crafts that probably nobody even cares about, there's no need to put my name on it or take ownership for it". I feel sad about that, and about how deeply I buried that truth inside myself. I really did believe this was a neutral topic, until my friend asked me about it and some parts of me got pretty insistent that I needed to reflect on this more. It's annoying when one revelation doesn't just change everything about how your mind works forever, but I suppose I should expect to keep uncovering uncomfortable truths I've shoved into the couch corners of my brain over the years. 

So anyway. I'm gonna try to start signing my art, as an intentional way to remind myself that the things I create are art. Art doesn't have to meet any standards to be art. It doesn't have to be good - I'm not saying mine is not good, just that whether it's good is irrelevant as to whether it's Art. It's art because I created it with intention and feeling and care, to exist and to say something or to evoke feelings or to be a pretty thing. Boom.