Artists

Art, independant of any attempts to define such a word, is undeniably a avenue in which us humans communicate our life experiences. The medium varies wildly and there is no authority on modality, extremity, duration, or instance in which something can or cannot be considered a work of art. Popularity exists, sure, but it by no means measures anything meaningful in the absolute.

However the artist themselves occupies a more stringent definition in my view. I find that for one to be called an artist, in the purest semantic sense of the word, they must be one who captures their ‘journey’, either of instantaneous moment or of any varying duration of their existence in whatever medium best suits their message or intended audience. This moment or journey is almost exclusively self-reflective, rarely is a work a potent work of art that isn’t highly personal to the artist. A journey to find, discover, or challenge oneself is commonly an aim where art is produced as a byproduct, ironically though should be the product.

As an audience of an artist, it follows that viewers are simply ‘along for the ride’ of the artist and are observing one attempting to communicate, sometimes using means as straightforward as words, but potentially as interpretive as ‘modern art’, although that borders on crossing the _meta-_art threshold beyond which the art is almost a reflexive mockery of itself - which one could argue no longer qualifies as ‘art’, but instead falls closer to commentary.

Regardless, the duty of the artist would be to recognize and encapsulate human experiences with the most possible honestly in their self-reflection, to the provide an artifact in which the audience is again responsible for interpreting. The levels of abstraction are not trivial however, since the core experience that the artist intends to capture is highly unquantifiable and the prowess of the artist relies strongly on the authenticity of the artist with themselves, in addition to the clarity of the work. However mainstream the interepretability of their work is.

Perhaps we should each see ourselves as artists in one way or the other, but certainly the artist themselves does limited ‘planning’ in creating what is likely a natural tendency to share, just in their own unique medium.