What Makes You an Artist? An Artist Musing

Can you learn art or do you have to be born an "artist" ?
What makes someone an artist ? These are questions often asked. My own journey has provided me with these musings - these will change as I continue along the path.

Artists have something to say. Their work explores a visual depth that is fed from within.

A painter will try to capture the world, colouring it with a little bit of their insides.
Artists try to capture their inside world using the images they see.
Great technical facility is seldom developed by those with nothing to say.

Artists are interested in developing their own philosophy of life, their beliefs and personal truths as well as mastering their materials and knowing their subject matter. It is with these "tools" they evolve a very personal and extensive visual vocabulary.

The end result is not about technique, but a result of individual exploration, interpretation, content and background knowledge of the experience.

For Rembrandt, command of technique simply facilitated the expression of vision. He valued truth and sincerity in art way beyond the classical notions of beauty. The integrity of the art lies with the artist, not simply in what he represents.

It is the artist's thought and feeling imbued in the artwork that gives integrity to his art.

In the end, it is in the doing that you move along the path to creating art of substance. Works that have something to say. Everyone has it - ideas, emotions and experience of life. It takes more than just practical skills to be an artist.

Exercise your imagination and search new ways to express it and acquire all the extra skills, perception, judgment and selection process required to go deeper and express what you see and think about things.

Think of it as visual rather than art education. It is a way of learning to "see".

Art fills me up
I feel aligned
charged ...
engaged with what I do
A way of Being
that engages heart, mind and will.