Musings on Artist
Jun. 1st, 2006 08:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matrix4bToday, I wanted to give my definition of an Artist. It is pretty flexible.
First some background: For the longest time back when I was a Teenager and in the early part of my 20s I felt a bit lost and did not really have a calling. Basically, I did not know what I really wanted to do. I had an interest in art but did not have enough confidence in myself to actually believe that I could create something beautiful. I was hiding from myself and did not care for people to see me. At the same time I was what some people would call “Honely”, a depressing combination of horny and lonely.
(Side note: the best way to remain alone and depressed is to project it and be shy. People will avoid you in an unconscious manor if you are lonely. So, TIP: Get out their and focus on having fun and not that you are lonely. It really sucked being a projective empathy of no small note and not knowing it.)
I have always enjoyed learning what makes the world work, be it the psychology of a person, how a gizmo is put together, or even how the world’s physics work. It is useful to know how things worked. A really big mystery to me has always been women and social dynamics and beauty. It is hard to understand what is beautiful and what is not. What is sufficiently complex enough that people couldn’t tell or simple enough that people would get it. This will probably always be a mystery to me in various different forms. So when I did create something with clay, stone, plaster, resin or what have you that other people considered beautiful it caused a lot of unusual emotions. Pleasure, confusion, fear, wanting, disbelief, and a few others. So needless to say, I never really considered myself an Artist before I had an epiphany. Part of that epiphany is wrapped up in the fact that both a singer and a painter are both considered artists, just of different mediums. So, I thought how many mediums of art exist? Well Infinite, of course. Beauty has no limitations. It is a perspective. It is a point of view. One person’s treasure is another person’s garbage. On person’s pain is another’s pleasure. So really it is hard to judge what is beauty once you realize this. So it does come down to perspective and individuality and the consensus. So if you can’t really define beauty and beauty is a big part of art how do you define what an Artist is. Well, this is a challenge. Not only are we talking about psychology but also many other things that deal with ephemeral things that need to be put together to provide a definition and then live the definition. I have had it hammered into my skull by some dear friends that I have indeed created things of beauty. This intrigued me and surprised me as I did not think it was possible. After all if you add black paint to white then you will always end up with grey no matter how much white you add after that. But I find grey much better than white any day. So that is ok.
So on with the definition and explanation:
What is an Artist? Well the simplistic form is someone who creates or performs art. So what is art? Well Art is a situation or thing that evokes emotion, usually beauty. What is beauty? Beauty is not easily defined. Near as we can get is that it is a sight/sensation that evokes good feelings such as awe, wonderment, and other emotions. So does this define what an Artist is? Not at all. The sum is more than the parts. Also, the implication is the person that is performing or creating the art has some sort of skill, aptitude or ability in it. So Artist, What is it?
An Artist to me is a person that performs or creates something that is to be enjoyed, cared about, thought about, sensed and appreciated, or some combination. This person basically Creates and creates to please and enjoys it. This creation can take the form of many mediums only a small number of examples are: Stone Sculpture, drawing, food, Painting, Managing people, sings or plays an instrument, brings a fictional person to life (actor or director or animator), invents something, discovers how to make life better (inventor), physical activity (Athlete), word and word manipulation (poet or writer), and many more. So you can see that my definition is rather flexible. At the same time it is my belief that every person is an Artist of some medium, most likely multiple mediums. And in my mind the sad part of it is that most people have not discovered that they are an Artist or even some of the mediums that they are capable of. They should be told and made to believe that they are special in at least one way. Everyone is special in different ways and every person is capable of extraordinary things. Sometimes all they need is encouragement and to know that they can.
I also refuse to believe that the fact that everyone is special is another way of saying that no one is special. We are all unique in different ways and need to learn to appreciate the artwork that they are. Each life is art in progress.
Ok, before I get too philosophical, I will cut this post off here. (I know some would say, too late.)
Laters,
Dave
First some background: For the longest time back when I was a Teenager and in the early part of my 20s I felt a bit lost and did not really have a calling. Basically, I did not know what I really wanted to do. I had an interest in art but did not have enough confidence in myself to actually believe that I could create something beautiful. I was hiding from myself and did not care for people to see me. At the same time I was what some people would call “Honely”, a depressing combination of horny and lonely.
(Side note: the best way to remain alone and depressed is to project it and be shy. People will avoid you in an unconscious manor if you are lonely. So, TIP: Get out their and focus on having fun and not that you are lonely. It really sucked being a projective empathy of no small note and not knowing it.)
I have always enjoyed learning what makes the world work, be it the psychology of a person, how a gizmo is put together, or even how the world’s physics work. It is useful to know how things worked. A really big mystery to me has always been women and social dynamics and beauty. It is hard to understand what is beautiful and what is not. What is sufficiently complex enough that people couldn’t tell or simple enough that people would get it. This will probably always be a mystery to me in various different forms. So when I did create something with clay, stone, plaster, resin or what have you that other people considered beautiful it caused a lot of unusual emotions. Pleasure, confusion, fear, wanting, disbelief, and a few others. So needless to say, I never really considered myself an Artist before I had an epiphany. Part of that epiphany is wrapped up in the fact that both a singer and a painter are both considered artists, just of different mediums. So, I thought how many mediums of art exist? Well Infinite, of course. Beauty has no limitations. It is a perspective. It is a point of view. One person’s treasure is another person’s garbage. On person’s pain is another’s pleasure. So really it is hard to judge what is beauty once you realize this. So it does come down to perspective and individuality and the consensus. So if you can’t really define beauty and beauty is a big part of art how do you define what an Artist is. Well, this is a challenge. Not only are we talking about psychology but also many other things that deal with ephemeral things that need to be put together to provide a definition and then live the definition. I have had it hammered into my skull by some dear friends that I have indeed created things of beauty. This intrigued me and surprised me as I did not think it was possible. After all if you add black paint to white then you will always end up with grey no matter how much white you add after that. But I find grey much better than white any day. So that is ok.
So on with the definition and explanation:
What is an Artist? Well the simplistic form is someone who creates or performs art. So what is art? Well Art is a situation or thing that evokes emotion, usually beauty. What is beauty? Beauty is not easily defined. Near as we can get is that it is a sight/sensation that evokes good feelings such as awe, wonderment, and other emotions. So does this define what an Artist is? Not at all. The sum is more than the parts. Also, the implication is the person that is performing or creating the art has some sort of skill, aptitude or ability in it. So Artist, What is it?
An Artist to me is a person that performs or creates something that is to be enjoyed, cared about, thought about, sensed and appreciated, or some combination. This person basically Creates and creates to please and enjoys it. This creation can take the form of many mediums only a small number of examples are: Stone Sculpture, drawing, food, Painting, Managing people, sings or plays an instrument, brings a fictional person to life (actor or director or animator), invents something, discovers how to make life better (inventor), physical activity (Athlete), word and word manipulation (poet or writer), and many more. So you can see that my definition is rather flexible. At the same time it is my belief that every person is an Artist of some medium, most likely multiple mediums. And in my mind the sad part of it is that most people have not discovered that they are an Artist or even some of the mediums that they are capable of. They should be told and made to believe that they are special in at least one way. Everyone is special in different ways and every person is capable of extraordinary things. Sometimes all they need is encouragement and to know that they can.
I also refuse to believe that the fact that everyone is special is another way of saying that no one is special. We are all unique in different ways and need to learn to appreciate the artwork that they are. Each life is art in progress.
Ok, before I get too philosophical, I will cut this post off here. (I know some would say, too late.)
Laters,
Dave