Career: ARTIST

 

There are many different titles used to describe employment. There are doctors, lawyers, mechanics, politicians, teachers, policeman (woman, person?), preacher, bartender, astronaut, prostitute, and many more.

I have to file the line of how did I worked to get a paycheck to pay for food, shelter, transportation, entertainment…as: ARTIST.

What is an artist?

A person who produces paintings or drawings as a profession or hobby.

A person who practices any of the various creative arts, such as a sculptor, novelist, poet, or filmmaker.

A person skilled at a particular task or occupation.

A person who creates art (such as painting, sculpture, music, or writing) using conscious skill and creative imagination.

In much of the world today, an artist is considered to be a person with the talent and the skills to conceptualize and make creative works. Such persons are singled out and prized for their artistic and original ideas

A person who practices or performs any of the creative arts, such as a sculptor, film-maker, actor, or dancer. There is no mention if qualifications, how much money you make or the years of experience you have. It's quite acceptable to call yourself an artist even if you don't make a living, or trained

Everyone is capable of making art, everyone is capable of expressing their innate creativity in some way, but the practice of actually being an artist is work, it is labor, it is a practice of making that requires intentionality, skill and craft.

Just like how we develop as people, artistic talent is a combination of nature and nurture. If you make art, you are an artist. It's not dictated by financial success or professional success. But if you don't make art, then you aren't an artist anymore.

Different Types of Artists by Style

·      abstract artist.

·      figurative artist.

·      academic artist.

·      graphic artist.

What are the 5 characteristics of an artist?

·      Persistence. Persistence is the quality that allows someone to continue doing something or trying to do something even though it is difficult or opposed by other people. ...

·      Patience. Patience is the quality of calm endurance. ...

·      Passion. ...

·      A Sense of Adventure. ...

·      Discipline.

Self-taught artists are artists who did not receive formal training in the visual arts, or whose formal training did not influence their artistic practice. Self-taught artists may or may not work as professional artists in the mainstream art world.

Some people believe that you need to be born with talent in order to be a good artist, but this is not true. Anyone can learn to draw or paint with enough practice. Some of the most famous artists in history were not born with talent, but they practiced regularly and became great artists.

I’m somewhat intimidated with the term: ARTIST.

There are those who’s names are equated with ‘art’. I don’t have a name like Picasso or Michelangelo or Andy Warhol that are written in the history books. I don’t have painting in museums (or painted on railroad cars). I don’t have songs that made the Billboard Top #20.

I did get accolades and awards and enough cash to survive from college to forced retirement with ideas and basic line drawings as a ‘commercial artist’.

Artist, no matter if you are a portrait painter or a pot thrower or a print maker or a dancer, musician, actor, baker, hobbyist, writer, singer, barber, knitter, seamstress, photographic, gardener, must present their talent to accumulate enough greenbacks to survive. Like an athlete, I didn’t have a fallback plan. I had no other talent except to observe, think and graphicly create an image that would sell the idea.

I tried photography and bought a nice camera with lenses and understood (from the professionals) that one shot may take a roll of film. I didn’t have a darkroom so I couldn’t afford it. I didn’t have the space for pottery or woodworking, so I was stuck with a drawing board. I tried comics but after enough rejection letters decided that was not my goal in life.

I did one show of black and white illustrations after college, but the review didn’t understand my premise. Friends (who defined themselves as ‘artist’ hoped to make a living painting in basements while working in local bars to pay the electric bill. Others played in the local symphony or clubs hoping for the big break to play in venues somewhere else.

I decided to work for an established organization that had security. There was more money to be had in advertising agencies but it was not steady work.

I was graduating from an art college but did not have to show my portfolio to be hired. The local newspaper was transiting from hot metal to digital manufacturing and their production union went on strike. Instead of being referenced to the ‘paste-up’ department, I was immediately hired in the ‘creative service’ department. It was then that I learned all the fine art classes did not prepare me for the real world of preparing advertising art.

Watching and being taught new techniques of using amberlite, velum, press type, border tape and x-acto knives (didn’t use the box cutters). Was impressed by some who had sketching talents to amaze while others could barely draw a straight line (even with a T-square and triangle).

The fascination to learn more, I ventured to a local book store and set up a monthly purchase of ‘artsy fartsy’ books for my library while at the same time set up an account at the school’s artistic tool supply store. I set up a studio at home to match or better my daily working conditions.

I did some ‘freelance’ work on the side but it was such a pain to get paid by clients that would say, “You are just drawing pictures”. Setting a cost on creating art is difficult. What is the price of an idea?

It must have worked, for I got awards and titles and pay raises. Even had to go to New York to participate in a banquet for the #100 Best Art Directors. They even had this big bound black book with gold embossed letters as door prizes for $100. I didn’t buy one.

Being a commercial artist, you are assigned a client or a project to make saleable within a deadline. If the results accomplish the anticipation, you get paid.

Then the ‘digital’ age came and everything changed.

A small television box attached to a keyboard and some weird wheel called a ‘mouse’ could provide an artist with ALL the tools to create ART. The first intuitions were basic but showed the potential for possibilities. I was lucky enough to participate in the incarnations and revelations.

In the end, I can accept the title of ARTIST as a career.

I’d drawl pictures for a living.