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Life // What do you do? – “I’m an Artist!”
( May 27, 2008 )
( May 27, 2008 )
A while ago I met a group people, who were all into art and connected to it in some way. And in introductory conversation they all always answered the same to my question: “What is it that you do?”. “I’m an Artist!” they said back and stared. So I was tempted to ask, what is it that you exactly do as an artist? And then finally followed the answer I first expected (in most cases).
It felt so pointless, the artist thing.
For a while this bothered me deeply, “I’m an Artist” didn’t really tell me much about what is it that they exactly do. And at the same time I thought it was a bit presumptuous of them, it was upsetting me.
After some time, it finally hit me why it displeased me so damn much…
Being an artist isn’t an occupation. Beings an artist is an identity!
When I’m asking what you do, if you’re an artist, I’m asking about your art. What is your art?
Through what media, how do you express your artist’s identity?
In this context, “I’m an artist” is simply so vague and empty. Meaningless.
Other related posts:
| [ tags ] art & artists • identity • perception • vent |