I work with a therapist (not a gender therapist just a general therapist for support with other stuff alongside the gender stuff) and I often do a lot of art pieces during the session and talk them through with her and she often asks me to draw to express my feelings. This therapy works great for me. Anyway, she spoke to me the other day and said that someone has asked her to send off some artwork of people she works with to be possibly published in a book. She got in contact because she thinks my art is so powerful and she wants to use mine to send off. She asked my permission to do this and I said yeah on the spot. I'm completely psyched that she chose my work and the possibility that it could be published, but the work is from my therapy and extremely personal so I'm wondering if I've made the right choice? I mean, they might not even like my work like she does but if they do then that means the whole world could see it. Would you go for it?

Disclaimer: I'm biased. I sell and trade my art all the time, so I give it a firm yes!

Joey,

All true art is part of your soul and is always personal.

I think it is a massive compliment and I would accept.

I would love to see some of your art as well, do you have a Deviant Art account?

Hugs

Cindy

Yeah I'm really complimented that's why I said yeah straight away. I'm so pleased somebody thinks I'm good enough. I don't have a deviant art account as most of my art is human form or drawings of celebs. The stuff I draw in therapy is completely different to that and are expressive paintings and drawings full of emotion. I keep them with her because I'm scared of somebody finding them. I like the human form stuff I do, but I think it would be breaking the rules if I posted any

Geez Joey, why haven't we seen any? 

I think you made the right choice, all art is personal, and another person looking at it isn't going to know exactly how you felt or what's going on in your life, it's for them to feel what's inside of them. Art is supposed to bring out other people's feelings. So don't be shy.

I always get disciplined in art so I think I'm no good haha. Yeah you make a good point there

Quote from: Joey. on May 11, 2013, 07:42:42 PM
I work with a therapist (not a gender therapist just a general therapist for support with other stuff alongside the gender stuff) and I often do a lot of art pieces during the session and talk them through with her and she often asks me to draw to express my feelings. This therapy works great for me. Anyway, she spoke to me the other day and said that someone has asked her to send off some artwork of people she works with to be possibly published in a book. She got in contact because she thinks my art is so powerful and she wants to use mine to send off. She asked my permission to do this and I said yeah on the spot. I'm completely psyched that she chose my work and the possibility that it could be published, but the work is from my therapy and extremely personal so I'm wondering if I've made the right choice? I mean, they might not even like my work like she does but if they do then that means the whole world could see it. Would you go for it?

You have a couple of different issues going on here.  Because your drawings are part of your therapy, they are protected as part of patient confidentiality.  It is mandatory that she receive some sort of waiver to make it public.

But that brings up the second point.  Are you of legal age in your place of residence to make such a waiver and contract.  Are you sure you that it will be anonymous, or conversely, will be properly credited?

Thirdly, your artwork is your intellectual property.  You deserve to draw compensation for its use, especially if it is used for profit.  Do you have copyrights?  I suspect it will be used for a medical or journal publication, but just the same, you own your art.

If it was anonymous I would go for it, but you might not worry about that so much.  I'm just nervous about what potential employers might think of me having been in therapy if it comes up while they're searching for stuff on me to check I'm not the sort of person who gets wrecked every night.  If they do social media checks then they'd probably do a google search and you never know if things like that will show up.  I don't talk about my mental health history with my peers either very often either.  Of course that also depends on what name it would be published under, if it's your birthname which will get changed anyway no one will make the connection. 

Anything creative is personal, if you want to remove some of the personal feelings about it then you could ask for your name to be Anon.
I think it's a positive thing to have talent recognised, you should be proud of your talent.

I think you've got an amazing opportunity in front of you, but if you're not comfortable with it, maybe talk with her about it. Maybe she can convince you to be ok with it. Or maybe the fact that you said yes right from the get-go means that you really do want this, and you just need to go for it! ;P

Congrats regardless of what you decide to do, that's so exciting!

I have few regrets in life but the biggest one is my total lack of ability to paint or draw.I admire this talent in anyone