Writer's Block: An Artist Is...

[packbat]

Do you consider yourself an artist? View other answers

An artist is someone who makes art. But what does it mean to be "someone who makes art"?

I can draw a picture from life. I can play the piano from sheet music. I can write, given a topic. In any of these cases, I may or may not be making 'art'.

On the other hand, I rarely feel the impulse to make art. I often feel the impulse to communicate - hence the blog - but communication, though it be creation of a sort, is not necessarily art, and I am certainly nothing like ursulav, cadhla, or kevinpease, whose muses will grab them by the metaphorical lapels and yell "create, create, create!" Or even like Seth, someone who just ... goes to work, automatically. Most of the time, if I produce art, I only produce art as a tool for other purposes.

So, I make art incidentally, not habitually. Does that make me an artist, or not?

Comments

What you are vs. what you do

[zhurnaly.livejournal.com]

I like the comment by Judson Jerome on what makes a poet:

"It helps to stop worrying about what you are and concentrate on what you do. If you think of a poet as a person with some special qualifications that come by nature (or divine favor), you are likely to make one of two mistakes about yourself. If you think you've got what it takes, you may fail to learn what you need to know in order to use whatever qualities you may have. On the other hand, if you think you do not have what it takes, you may give up too easily, thinking it is useless to try. A poet is someone --- you, me, anyone --- who writes poems. That question out of the way, now we can learn to write poems better." (Chap. 1, "From Sighs and Groans to Art")

nice philosophy, and maybe applicable to other areas of life ... cf. IambicHonesty1 (http://zhurnaly.com/cgi-bin/wiki/IambicHonesty1) ... ^z

Re: What you are vs. what you do

[packbat.livejournal.com]

Good quote - thanks!