What makes you an artist?
I had another one of those art related discussions yesterday with a friend who is doing an Honours degree in Printmaking at Glasgow School of Art. It comes up more frequently these days, probably to do with me having more time to be creative and also being in Glasgow itself which is definitely a more art slash creative aware city (at least for the masses kind of art) than any of I’ve previously lived in. The subject can usually take one of two directions, the first is ‘What is art?” and the second ‘What makes you an artist?’.
It’s a never ending discussion for me, yet each time I have it – regardless of whom I’m talking too, I learn something else about me and my beliefs. Yesterday I was left with the challenge of determining the difference between laziness and narrowmindedness when it comes to viewing art. Where is the line between the two?
What makes an artist?
I’d be interested to hear your comments…
Definitely food for thought. Thank you…
I also got fed up with the interpretations and opinions about ‘art’, so I looked it up in various dictionaries and began to see that somewhere along the line the definition of ‘art’ completely reversed!
It begins with the old ‘nature/nurture’ debate. If you do not have a natural ability for an activity, then you have to work hard through practice to acquire the art. In other words, anything that is ARTificial or contrived by humans is an art, and is PRACTICED by artists. It has first to be learned from others, and the goal seems to be to reproduce as mechanically and as exactly as possible — such as a classicla concert pianist’s strivings for ‘perfection’ — fidelity, truth, precision. So almost everything we do deliberately that is repeatable is an art. ‘Art’ connects to artisan, artifact, and so forth.
On the other hand, anything that is the result of accident — anything unrepeatable (such as dripping paint on a canvas), and anything with little human input, beit a natural object found on a beach, or a product of a mechanised, automated process, is not art.
One would have to then suppose that someone who revolutionises art — a genius — is someone who is able to conform, but who chooses to do something else, something that adds to the things to be learned by those who follow. This is perhaps best understood as a blend of artistry through disciplined practice and natural ability (but not necessarily in the same things).
I have become quite attached to this as a benchmark test for what-we-call art, but I have found that so much so-called art in galleries (etc) by so-called artists no longer seem to fit the definitive profiles.
Not wishing to denigrade such artists and their works, I would have to sugegst that it is the language that is letting us down — the ‘art’ word simply cannot cover all the present scenarios.
It would be your own value judgement to decide whether ‘the art of seduction’ or ‘the art of throwing darts’ detracts from present day gallery-art, natural ability, professionalism, intuition, emotion, definition or other so-called and present day ‘art’ attibutes.
Food for thought, eh?