Am I an artist?

Over the last few weeks I have been asked if I am an artist. My answer has always been “No”.

Why?

Because for me an artist was somebody who had perhaps studied the arts, paints /sculptures/video-creation regularly but had definitely had a couple of exhibitions.

In the mean time, my awareness or “definition” is slowly changing.

In everyday speech it refers to a practitioner in the visual arts, or a musician and other performer.

“Wiktionary” defines the “artist”:

• A person who creates art.
• A person who creates art as an occupation.
• A person who is skilled at some activity.

The “Oxford English Dictionary” has a broader meaning:

• A learned person or Master of Arts
• One who pursues a practical science, traditionally medicine, astrology, alchemy, chemistry
• A follower of a pursuit in which skill comes by study or practice
• A follower of a manual art, such as a mechanic
• One who makes their craft a fine art
• One who cultivates one of the fine arts – traditionally the arts presided over by the muses

“Princeton.edu” definition is:

• creative person (a person whose creative work shows sensitivity and imagination).

“Wikipedia” general definition is more:

• An artist also may be defined unofficially as “a person who expresses him- or herself through a medium”.
• The word is also used in a qualitative sense of, a person creative in, innovative in, or adept at, an artistic practice.
• people who use imagination, talent, or skill to create works that may be judged to have an aesthetic value.

And what is “Art”?

Wikipedia again:

• The word art is derived from the Latin “ars”, which, although literally defined means, “skill method” or “technique”, holds a connotation of beauty.

Then we have the splitting of the definition into:

• fine arts - items resulting out of the intellectual skills/process
• applied arts - items resulting from manual skills

Some people say that the arts have to please, have to provoke, to change the way we live.

I have a creative urge. Looking back at on what I have visionised, visualised, specified and created I have definitely been an artist using intellectual skills at a high level, conjuring up “things” out of nowhere.

An example of such things is a technical high level conceptual paper or a technical system, which for a normal art critic, is not understandable but for an engineer has aesthetic beauty, perhaps in its design or form, These things are printed, manufactured, are exhibited, and change our world.

I have also sketched, painted, created videos, designed jewelry.

So the answer now is “Yes, I was, I am and will be artist”