Who gets to decide if you're allowed to call yourself an artist?

Girl
(Image by Pixabay: whitedaemon)   Details   DMCA

I have wrestled, mightily, with my identity as an artist. Even calling myself a creative feels a bit like hiding, like finding a safer way of claiming my power...I consider how desperately we need art to get through this incredibly trying time. Genocide. Political instability. A global rise in far-right movements. Attempted assassinations. All that endures, the way we find meaning through it all, in my opinion, is through art.