How do you become an artist?

Art is what society agrees is art.

This varies from society to society (and within different strata of that society) and from time to time.

An artist is therefore someone who creates what some section of society, at a given time, agrees to call art. Is David Hamilton an artist or a pornographer? Or both?

Over the years I've been called all sorts of things, including (on occasion) artist. I'd rather someone else supplied the labels, because they don't matter very much to me. Putting food on the table matters.

Cheers,

R.
 
I guess once becomes an artist only when the society (or part of it) will recognize him as such.

There are many unrecognized artist and many recognized tinkers 😛
 
enochRoot said:
if you create art, you're an artist.
Click to expand...

Even if you intend to create art and nobody agrees with you, you are an artist.

Nobody agreed with Van Gogh while he was alive, he was an artist anyway.


I consider myself an artist, although nowhere as good at my art as I want to be. The series with models I shoot are entirely devised by me. Choice of film, cameras, lenses, location, lighting, time of day, accessories all are my choices. Models choice is clothing, although I advise on that as well.

Prints likewise, I decide number of prints, sizes, paper, color or B&W, etc.

If it's anything other than above, I sell images free of rights, and my name isn't printed with them.
 
An Artist is someone who simply makes art. It has nothing to do with money or anything else. If you get paid to do something, you are a professional in that field.
 
What about being born with an artistic "streak" in your blood, which is nurtured at an early stage in life by members and events in your immediate environment?
 
Although it's hard to say definitively whether not you're an artist, if any of the following apply then you probably are:

  • You do "Fine Art Photography"
  • You scratch words like "Hopeless" or "Lost" on you negatives
  • You print using obscure processes like cyanotype or bromoil
  • Your 16x20 prints have margins at least four inches wide
  • You pencil edition numbers on your prints, such as '2/10'
  • You're best mates with Ralph Gibson and Larry Clark
  • You learned to print from Ansel Adams or Wynn Bullock
  • You studied Zen with Minor White
  • You swept W Eugene Smith's loft
  • You changed your name by deed poll, so your intials are now HCB
  • You watermark your digital work
  • You filed out your negative carrier so you get a black line round your prints
  • You filed out your scanner so you get a black line round your prints
  • You have an agent
  • You've had a show at MOMA
  • You've published a monograph
  • Your web site uses Flash
  • You wear a cape and your address begins with "291"
  • You've been arrested for taking photographs
  • You only photograph at night
 
If you create art, your an artist. What ever art means? If you create art and many people buy it your a financially successful artist. But, in either instance you may or may not be a good artist.

If you are wondering what the bench mark for good is: if I like it, it is good; if I do not like it, it is bad. Regardless of what the rest of the world thinks, I'll decide what speaks to me. I really don't care if that offends someone else, because they can love all the junk they want. Because, that is the nature of art!

You could just say to h*ll with me and everyone else, and just worry about creating what is true to you. You may or may not make a living at it, but it will be your vision. I think I would choose the path of indifference to others if I was you. Because, this question is an endless pit, that can take you away from what is true to you.
 
Here we go again...although this time some of the responses are more humorous than last time...🙄

My day job is gone...what does that make me? Unemployed riff-raff, nothing more, nothing less in society's eyes.

Art? Artist?

Not elegant... but to take a line from my old motorcycling days, that just might fit here:

"If I have to explain, you wouldn't understand..."😀

Now, Fred has a point about the bankers...
 
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