Are YOU an artist?

pangarang

Here's a topic of discussion I think would be interesting. Describe your reasons for making art.And I don't mean "because it pays the bills." I'm sure most, if not, all of us here would be making art in some form or another even if we were accountants for our day jobs. Describe why.

So I'll go first.

When I hear the word artist, I see someone who appreciates how life can be brought out various mediums. But more than that, someone who can render subtle intangible elements through visuals alone, like the meaning, the atmosphere through the use of a variety of skills. Hand-eye coordination, the ability to see something that's not there, understanding of colour theory, form, layout and presentation.

Personally, I didn't start calling myself an artist until about 23 years old and I'm still adjusting to it (I'm 24 now). Sure, I've been drawing and sketching images from my head since before I could write, sure I've doodled in classes, painted in my spare time, taught myself digital programs, heavily invovled in creative writing for 11 years strong, teaching myself the piano, etc.

But the motives behind everything I do is the same - I have an image I see, an emotion I feel, and I want to share that anyway I can - whether through writing, illustrating or music. I'm not the best at any of those disciplines, and the only reason I strive to get better on a technical level is to better convey what I see and feel in my head.

So when I use "artist" to describe myself, it can sometimes feel like a lie because I don't have all this deep insight into other people's work. I just like it or I don't without putting the why into words. Like my heart knows why but mouth can't put it into words. I just use the term because I know it's what other people would use to describe me. Just that my personal connotations with the word, i feel, don't suit me 100%.

I just do what I do in a never-ending quest to get better at what I do. Whatever feeling or imagery I have in my head - seeing THAT on another person's face as they look at my work, that's why do it, that's why I love it. Not because I can call myself an artist - whatever that is.

Ok, lets hear some others!

Rens

because.. i like boobies.




no but seriously, it feels weird to tell people im an artist, most of them dont even understand what it means. i look at things differently then the people around me. i love nature, and alot dont even notice it, or the world around them, and i cannot understand how they do it. guess i think too much.

JFletcher

exactly the same as Rens,

i don't really like saying im an 'artist' to people who perhaps don't know much about what i do, i guess i think it gives off a different impression to different sorts of people.

i do see things differently, and perhaps think too much, and i get the shit dumped on me for it, as in people will assume i have done nothing over a period of time (consider a scenario where someone will see your model and just say 'nice drawing' )

hell, my own FATHER said to me once that painting in photoshop is cheating...

i like to draw and develop 2d skills as well, but i think it will be a while before anyone considers stuff done on computers, actually art, and not something 'generated'

Wells

when i think of 'artists' i think of people like tracey emin

i never referred to myself as one until my business cards actually said 'artist' on them. now i tell everyone who will listen.

i make art as a pressure release on an otherwise over-clocked, under-designed, fucked up little mind. also, it's good fun.

Steve Schulze

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree with Sectaurs. I'm not sure I am an artist, really. Artisan is probably a more apt description. More like a potter or a funiture maker than someone who hangs their canvases in an art gallery for people in turtle-necks to discuss over chardonay.

Gav

Yeah, kind of like what Sectaurs and Jackablade said. I consider myself more of a craftsman than an artist. I just make games, more specifically I make assets for games. I haven't devoted years of my life to one piece, I don't view the world around me much different than the next person, I don't make something with the intention that it will "move" the viewer...I really only use the term "artist" because that is more or less what the industry has categorized what I do as, really I'm just a dude who likes to make pretty character's for video games, but that doesn't have the same ring to it

Ruz

If tracey emin is an artist then I am dick van dyke.
I see myself as a commerical artist, but an artist non the less.

Eric Chadwick

I make art because I enjoy doing it, people stroke my ego for it, and I'm good enough at it that I get paid to do it. Getting paid for something I would do anyway is pretty awesome.

Mister Sentient

Semantics again. Many famous paintings hanging in galleries around the world were originally done as commission pieces. Does this mean they aren't art? Is the roof of the Sistene Chapel in Rome not art because the church paid Michelangelo to paint it?

Chunkey

I'm an artist

I make pretty things! if I didn't do it for a living, I'd probably do something creative just to pass the time by

danr

i'm not an artist. It just says that on my contract and pay slip. I'm a fixer. Much more glamorous, in an east-end gangster sort of way

Tulkamir

[edit]

On second thought...I'm with chunky I make pretty shit. I'm an artist.

pangarang

Because the game industry is relatively young, I think society as a whole hasn't fully accepted what we do as art, since art in general has been around for thousands of years. This includes us in some ways, hence the reason why alot of us are hesitant to describe ourselves as artists because we're not sure what kind of impression we'll give other people.

In short, just the fact that we make pretty things for more reasons than paying the bills entitles us to the term, no?

I've heard people say that using photoshop to make images is "cheating". I agree, to an extent, though I would never use the word cheating. Digital programs are just a more efficient way to produce art (and in the work place, efficiency is the be all end all of us as employees!), but the best digital pieces usually come from people who have a strong sense of art theory and traditional illustration abilities anyway.

So I can understand why some people might see digital art as cheating because

a) there's the undo button
b) layers so you don't screw up a part of a piece you don't like
c) blending modes, channels and adjustment layers get rid of the need to mix paint
d) selection masks prevents the artist from painting outside the lines
e) custom brushes and the ability to mix digital photography allows easier texturing as opposed to painting details by hand
f) there is no need to control the medium. You can get a watercolour look without worrying about running water, or the paint soaking the paper through.

I disagree with the word "cheating", however. To me, these features save hours and hours of work, which is essential when you're working to meet a deadline. And knowing how to illustrate properly, whether in traditional or digital mediums requires skill in the first place!

Eric Chadwick

Photoshop is simply another tool. It's no different from traditional media, you still have to learn how to use the tool, and you still have to have a good eye.

Tulkamir

The idea that there is a way to cheat at art by making the craft easier is ridiculous to me. In my opinion art is not craft. It is communication. Specifically communication of an idea that is in some way profound or that deeply affects the audience. It doesn't matter how you get to the point of communicating the idea. To say that something is not art because of the medium used just doesn't make sense to me.

Soccerman18

I'm not an artist, I'm an engineer. But after a day of designing circuits and analyzing code it's nice to relax and do some creative work.

Ruz

I used to get accused of cheating because i was an airbrush artist.

perhaps cave painters would regard oil painters as cheaters:)

there is loads of artistic merit in vid games anyway.

If you asking if games art is high art then I don't really care if they are not perceived as such.

'high art' is for a small audience of self proclaimed elitists, commerical art / vid games is geared for the masses and in that regard I prefer the latter.

JesterBox

I don't really like when people say "I'm an artist so I see things in ways you cannot"

I like to draw stuff and have been since I was little.

Cool crap just pops in my head a lot, I'll say that.

Everyone's an artist. Not everybody likes to do art.

Ged

pangarang wrote: »

a) there's the undo button
b) layers so you don't screw up a part of a piece you don't like
c) blending modes, channels and adjustment layers get rid of the need to mix paint
d) selection masks prevents the artist from painting outside the lines
e) custom brushes and the ability to mix digital photography allows easier texturing as opposed to painting details by hand
f) there is no need to control the medium. You can get a watercolour look without worrying about running water, or the paint soaking the paper through.

I dont think we should consider this stuff cheating either, I just think its a young medium of art and people arent sure how to understand that. We even arnt sure how to categorise it, which is shown when we have discussions like this. I think its just a bit of a shock to the traditional art world that many of thier methods have been improved upon so radically in the last few years. Its the same results the tools have just changed so much that they cant easily accept that its the same thing.

I consider myself an artist not because of what I have done already or what I do for a career but rather because of what I aspire to do with my life. I want to create things that I enjoy creating and others appreciate, Ive got one life here on earth and I want to use all the abilities Ive got to their full while Im here.

People might not consider me an artist because I dont fit into their pidgeon-hole of what an artist should be but since when did artists always conform to be pidgeon-holed? Personally I consider anyone who shows creativity in what they do in life to be an artist. designers, poets, architects, musicians, writers,painters,programmers,actors and all the rest....hey even engineers can create art in thier work and play( cat-yodelling anyone? ). I just wonder when the world in general will wake up and realise that only calling people with paint on their brushes "artists" is incredibly outdated and has always been a silly stereotype.

Mark Dygert

Calling Photoshop a cheat is like saying no true artist would ever consider using an eraser or lightly sketch out a scene before committing with paint. Just because something was painted digitally doesn't make it any less of a painting.

Can you make art with photoshop, yes. You can also horribly butcher whatever it is you're trying to make much like traditional artistic methods. Simply using a tool doesn't make it art, or you an artist.

Just because we figure out smarter ways to work, doesn't mean its cheating. So we shouldn't use advanced scientifically improved paints we should go mash berries and stretch animal hides?

ImSlightlyBored

Ruz wrote: »

I used to get accused of cheating because i was an airbrush artist.

perhaps cave painters would regard oil painters as cheaters:)

there is loads of artistic merit in vid games anyway.

If you asking if games art is high art then I don't really care if they are not perceived as such.

'high art' is for a small audience of self proclaimed elitists, commerical art / vid games is geared for the masses and in that regard I prefer the latter.

ALERT!
Winning post!

Pretty much identical to what I'd say. Except im no airbrush artist.

aesir

wasn't it michaelangelo or someone who thought oil painters were amateurs because they can paint over work easily?

mickmockmack

:icon_arrow: check out this new CS3 plugin

http://vptables.googlepages.com/photoshoptools

[MILES]

If I wasn't creating stuff...my head would explode and blood would shoot out of my eyeballs. (Not necessarily in that order).

dfacto

I spent most of my childhood making LEGO mecha, airplanes, cars, and other crazy shit, and drawing pisspoor recreations of Ronin Warriors and Bubblegum Crisis characters.

Now I'm older and I pretty much do the same thing, minus the legos. No real reason to it other than a hyperactive imagination and a love for cool shit.

JesterBox

I still break out the legos sometimes.....

SHEPEIRO

Ruz wrote: »

I used to get accused of cheating because i was an airbrush artist.

perhaps cave painters would regard oil painters as cheaters:)

there is loads of artistic merit in vid games anyway.

If you asking if games art is high art then I don't really care if they are not perceived as such.

'high art' is for a small audience of self proclaimed elitists, commerical art / vid games is geared for the masses and in that regard I prefer the latter.

not true IMHO although its widly believed

"high art" is something that has wide resonance throughout society and can stand on its own merits above that of technique and technology, it usually strives to make people think above and beyond what is literal. that is why minimal conceptual art is percieved as "high". video games rely heavily on technique and technology and not conceptual theories (in general)

oh jezuz im boring myself...

ThatDon

I think the artist is such a loose term any more. Gav and I have discussed this before and I'm with him on the craftsman view.

pangarang

Ruz,

This whole high art vs. commercial art, artist vs. artisan talk reminds me of something I've thought about before. While commercial art appeals to the masses, and high art is only appreciated by a few people, is it fair to suggest that commercial art is more gratifying to an artist because it appeals (in general) to more people? If that's who you are as an artist, that's great, cause I'm not here to judge or anything. But I'm curious if that's what you meant.

In my opinion, lots of people liking something I do because it looks cool is great and all. But if just one person recognises the meaning I put behind something (which is not to say I do this all the time, most of the time I just make choices cause it looks cool to me, lol), that is just as gratifying to me as a billion people liking a technically appealing piece.

Illusions

I'm really of a different mind about the whole commercial art v. high art v. art sort of thing, simply because what a lot of people consider to be really famous good art, could have at the time been considered commercial art. All those cathedrals, paintings, etc. commisioned by the early Christian church aren't really all that different than say a commercial commisioned by Coca Cola. They're trying to sell something to the people (in the Church's case religion), establish brand identifiability, and also one-up their competitors. Its just that after a few centuries people no longer see things like the Sistine Chapel screaming "Look how glorious Christianity is!" , "Convert to our wonderful religion!" , "Bow down before the might of GOD!", but instead large wonderous works of art. Even old Islamic mosques and artwork are of the same idea. Then we also have illuminated manuscripts, etc. The message hasn't changed any, just the medium in which its presented.

Slainean

I think people are afraid to call themselves artists because it sounds pretentious. I know I tip-toe around the word most of the time, but it's silly. There isn't much of a difference between an artist and a craftsman, really. ^^^ Illusions put it a bit better.

Frankie

dick van dyke is a 3d artist and has done effects for diagnostic murder.

SuPa-

I'm an artist I guess
I do things people would consider "artistic" like painting and drawing
And 3d work, but as some people have said, others might not really think of that as art, but I do

I like doing art because it's creation, and the process it takes to create that creation. You make something, with character, life, and emotion, and feel the satisfaction of saying that you made it, and finished what you started.

Art gives me something to do. From scribbling as an infant, to drawing as a kid, to painting, and then now to 3d work, where I can create a whole world if I really wanted to. But I consider 3d an art. You mold something into what you want it to be, you paint it, and you set up some lighting like a photographer would. Another thing is that I like improving. It's just a happy feeling to know you're constantly getting better at what you do.

Nowadays, when I watch on of those cute animated movies by Disney/Pixar I always take into consideration the work it took to make that movie, and I seem to notice all the stuff that they had to do. Every little sound, every little movement, and I just get amazed by it :P

Ged

I studied Emotions in game design for my dissertation and part of it was analysing the game artists role in the creation of the game experience. I found textbooks that talk about a few ways in which games designers can be considered artists.

“A close consideration of game space reveals a broad range of aesthetic influences, including expressionism( which maps emotions on to physical space) and romanticism(which endows landscapes with moral qualities). As game designers dig deeper into these artistic traditions, they may develop more emotionally evocative and meaningful spaces.” (Jenkins, 2002:70).

“Game designers might study melodrama for a better understanding of how artefacts or spaces can contain affective potential or communicate significant narrative information. Melodrama depends on the external projection of internal states, often through costume design, art direction, or lighting choices.” (Jenkins, 2006:683)

So I think that is just a few of the ways in which people who work on video games can be considered artists even by art theorists. And the fact that art text books now have this kind of information shows that the worlds understanding of the medium is maturing.

Ruz

pangarang - I used to work for a fine artist as an assistant and although the work he did

was basically technical illustration, it was kind of dressed up as fine art.

So the lines are sometimes a bit blurred.

http://www.benjohnsonartist.com/benjohnsonartist.htm

nice bloke - but the constant opera music drove me close to insanity:)

I think he thought me a bit of a hooligan he he

There are so many different areas within art these days -

general illustration, visual communcation design, technical illustration, scientific illustration, medical illustration etc

so it's not easy to say what is 'proper' art.

For me I think its important that your work is appreciated by the general populace.

I certainly think that game art falls in the to the broader category of commercial art, because

so many of the techniques crossover.

LOL @Frankie chim chimeny etc

Ruz

though i would pimp his latest work
might be of some interest to someone although its not game art
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalmuseumsliverpool/sets/72157594395968439/

TWilson

Je suis un artiste.

I'm a commercial artist and I've let my traditional skills fade. The tools we have available now are amazing. Layers and such. One day I'd like to reclaim my traditional skills. I feel it's more true.

Generally I'm disappointed by North American style art. I feel like I'm working for McDonalds most of the time. Art for money. Recreating reality or whatever sells based on the sales of the previous product in the license I'm making a sequel for.

HOWEVER ...who can really complain about making art for a living? I'm happy to tell people I'm an artist. I love it. I worked hard to get here.

NeoShroomish

I'd like to be able to do what an artist does, but I just don't have that kind of skill. Maybe under different circumstances I might've been.

Super

Yes.

Slingshot

I consider myself an artist. I like dabbling in different art medians when I get the time; Ink wash, clay, wood carving, stone carving and of course 3D and 2D stuff on my computer.

I like to think as the word artist in a broader sense. A Writer has words; an Architect has buildings, etc. Each one has their own way to "make pretty things" but in different visual forms. Yes everyone can do art but some people are more skilled at it than others. The word artist does sound kind of snooty tho. In the end we all have different titles for the different kind of art we do. Unfortunately their is no defined line in the world that makes you an artist except for the commitment you continually give to your craft to perfect it on a daily basis. Oh and artists are not quitters.

Although I don’t consider painting a red dot in the middle of the canvas as art. This dot represents the blab bla bla. A waste of everyone’s time that’s what it represents.

Sage

Slingshot if it was black, it's a piece of art, the dot has to be black to be the masterpiece. Not red.

Computer art is going through what Photography started to go through a few decades ago, arrogant painters and other "Fine Artists" felt it was not art, since anyone can go an just point and shot click and the resulting work looks like something Ansel Adams would take. Nothing to it no skill involved. So some of you don't feel like artist because you are not starving, get over it. Not everyone can use a wacom, mouse, or a computer as a tool to produce art. Besides the people that look at your work are the ones that decide if you are artists or not, it's something you earn. Just my 2 cents.


Alex

Ghostscape

I want to create things because it makes me a tiny god.

Ferg

could someone please just ban the word "artist" already? I don't know how many of these discussions I've witnessed or participated in... it's a pretty subjective and ultimately pointless term. Just go back to making pretty pictures.

The next time you want to discuss the more philosophical side of art, hit it on a more specific level, like how you can communicate abstract emotional states to your audience through lighting and color palette. Far more interesting to discuss a focussed topic like that... and far more useful and relevant to those of you that consider yourselves "artists", whatever the fuck that means.

I don't know if I'm an artist, but I'm definitely an excitable artfuck.

Kevin Johnstone

I'm an artist, I build worlds. A lot of my motivation comes from my dislike of the rules others made and called reality, as a world builder I get to make alternative places for people
to play and socialize in.
I always feel good about giving back the freedom to escape reality that proved so benificial to
me when I was unhappy in the past with my lot in life.

Mark Dygert

Why do I keep getting the feeling these threads are started so we can write students papers for them? They seem to hit the same themes that come from a generated list.

I have to agree with Ferg. Do what you do and leave the titles and BS for other people to sort out. Personally I'm tempted to start up a thread on Fergs topic because it is MUCH more interesting.

Kev hits a really good point, he and many of us build worlds, sometimes much more tangible then what could be done in the past. Yes it can be considered art. Not every form of art was widely accepted so close to its birth. Look at the impressionist, everyone thought they where hacks who couldn't paint, now artistic masters people study.

SHEPEIRO

Ghostscape wrote: »

I want to create things because it makes me a tiny god.

t-shirt/bumper-sticker time

Joao Sapiro

honestly i dont give a shit if im considered an artist or not , most of the people i know still say i make "webdesign" or "graphic design" so kinda pointless trying to explain, and i dont need the egoboost :P

[MILES]

Prince changed his name to a funny little symbol that could not be pronounced. As a result, he was referred to as "The Artist" or "The Artist Formerly Known As Prince", but he is now Prince again. The moral of this story is: if you want to know if you are an artist, change your name to a funny little symbol that cannot be pronounced. Then wait to see what people call you.

dfacto

A douchebag?

HarlequiN

Artist.

I know I'm an artist because it says so on my business cards

Beyond that... Probably not, by any classic definition of the term. I guess I'm a tinkerer. I like to fiddle with things until I know sort of how to do it, and then I move on (usually before I'm particularly any good at the task in question).

Or maybe I'm just a piss artist... Yeah, that works

Justin Meisse

I'm going to build a small studio/workshop in my new apartment, that makes me an artist and possibly an artiste


or maybe just a jackass who likes to paint Speak & Spells