There is an interesting discussion going on over at Edward_Winkleman on What Makes Someone "Not an Artist". Sometimes Winkleman makes my head hurt. I love that!
I'd like to post a reply to the man but I know I would go on for a very long time, and seeing as Blogger doesn't do trackbacks I'm going to have to explore my notions on this subject here at ArtLOOK without agenda or benefit of collecting a few nuggets of blog traffic that I'd hope to receive from his vast viewing audience.
When I was in college, I had to interview with the head of the art history department in order to enter that program. The professor asked me "Why do you want to study art history?" I replied that it was "because I believed an artist resided in my heart." The professor suggested that in that case I should perhaps study studio arts. I declined telling the professor, "The things artists do and the way they see life, and interpret it, is a gift. I do not have that gift. My gift is the gift of appreciation." I am not an artist.
Now that I'm all grown up and do what I do for a living, I have had artists tell me "Well you are an artist too". I make postcards and brochures and design websites and while I am compelled to do these things, using their art as my content, I might (maybe) consider myself a designer...but certainly not an artist. Some of Winkleman's commentators say "If someone calls you an artist, you are an artist". How absolutely flattering and how I wish that were true but to be an artist is something you have to feel, and believe in your heart. It was years before I could even start to consider myself a designer.
Artists, to me, are those incredible people who are compelled to live every day creating art. They can't help themselves and there is nothing else in this world they could do other than be artists. They work for it. They live it, breathe it, talk about it, dream about it, sacrifice for it. It's in their kitchen, their living room, their hallways, it's in the clothes they wear...it's all over those paint or plaster covered shoes that have been kicked off in a corner somewhere. Artists see things with different eyes and when I look at the sky with them I am amazed and delighted when they tell me about the GREEN they see in the northern light. I don't see that.
What is not an artist. Someone who is not what I described above and lacks creativity, imagination, inspiration and motivation. I also want to make a note here regarding the difference between the master, a good artist and a bad artist. Perhaps this is a label that art critics, gallerists, curators and such determine. It is judged on application, technique and the ability to elicit an emotional response in the viewer.
Can a lawyer, a composer (as sited at Winkleman), or an engineer also be an artist? They can certainly do artful things but it doesn't necessarily mean they are artists. For instance the engineer who creates such a marvel as never before seen. In this project we could say he created a work of art. But the marvel could be a fluke, an impassioned endeavor...something that is a one time feat which is nonetheless a work of art but it doesn't make the engineer an artist. The lawyer who deliberates with passion and intensity...we could say she delivered a masterful argument but she is not an artist at law.
What makes someone an artist? When is someone not an artist? I guess I can only sum this vexing topic by saying as Potter Stewart, "I know it when I see it."
