Artist in Transition

Why are labels so important to us?  We all have a need to understand who we are and why we are here, but it seems that we need to label ourselves in order to achieve that understanding.  I'm the "academic" the "artist" the "redhead" the "fill-in-the-blank."  Why is categorization so important to our ability to understand the world?  Perhaps those convenient little boxes really just give us the illusion that we comprehend what's going on around us.

I did a project with a group of students in 2010 called the No Label Project.  (Our website is no longer active, but you can view the homepage here.)  On a single day, we passed out nearly two thousand large, bright red stickers that simply read "NO LABEL."  We asked people to wear these stickers on their person for the day, and to use it as an opportunity to talk about how we are all labeled.  We were particularly interested in the idea of "disability" as a label.  A "disability" is a different way of functioning in the world, but we're quick to peg someone as "the blind girl" or "the stutterer" or "the kid with ADD."  These things may be part of our experience of the world, but they don't define who we are.

Being a person who stutters, I am very aware of the effect of labels.  I used to call myself a "stutterer."  It was such a part of who I was, I couldn't actually imagine myself without it, except in some far-off dream of the future.  When I finally realized that this was creating a problem for me in speech therapy--that I couldn't let the stuttering go and still be "Erica," I started saying "I am a person who stutters."  This seems so simple, but it really changed how I think about who I am.  Rather than being a "stutterer," stuttering is something that happens to me or that I do.  We don't call someone an "ADDer," because ADD isn't who they are.  It's something someone struggles with, but it isn't synonymous with who they are.

Fast forward to today.  I feel as though I have lost "who I am."  I didn't realize that being a "professor" or an academic had come to overwhelmingly define me in my own eyes.  Without that title or that label, I feel lost.  Am I an artist, a maker, a stay-at-home-wife?  What is my new paradigm to understand myself and my purpose?

Matthew and I attended a small group Bible study last Sunday, and someone asked us what we do.  Matthew's a geospatial researcher who works for the Army Corps.  I said "I'm an artist in transition."  I was teaching and now I'm making, but I'm not really sure what I'm doing.  For the first time, I found a label that seemed to fit.  And I really hate labels, but I still seem to depend on them.  Without one, would I be anything at all?