What Makes an Artist?
When I tell people that I have an art-based degree it prompts the question of: “So, you are an artist then?!” I guess, that after obtaining a GCSE followed by an A Level in Art, then later on a Foundation Degree in Art, Media and Design which lead on to a Bachelor’s Degree, with Honours in Photographic Art, I am qualified enough to be an artist. But does having all these qualifications make me a better artist? Or do you really need an arts-based degree to be an artist?
In order to answer these questions, we need to look at what makes someone an artist and what a degree gives you opposed to not having a degree.
The dictionary definition of an artist is “a person who creates paintings or drawings as a profession or hobby” which rules out, straight away, anyone working in other mediums – photographers, silversmiths, potters, sewers, print makers, graphic artists, glassblowers. The list is endless. The dictionary definition really needs to be updated, especially in today’s world, where art can be made using so many different mediums, let alone a lot of art being produced virtually on laptops, tablets, phones and pcs.
Art falls into two distinctive categories, decorative and meaningful, which is something I learned on my courses. There is the pretty, fun art that gets bought because it appeals to the eye and is, sometimes functional, other times not so much. Then there is the meaningful art which can still be pretty but has a deeper meaning to it, just think about Banksy and the often-political messages that his stencil “graffiti” portrays.
An arts-based degree can help to develop an understanding of messages that are being portrayed, it can help you to produce work with meaning woven through it while building on skills, the history surrounding art and techniques but I don’t think that having an arts-based degree makes you an artist. Art courses can teach such things as what makes a good composition, colour theory and give you building blocks of knowledge to make better art, but you need to have obtained skills and knowledge, an eye for detail beforehand.
Many of the skills that are needed to become an artist are learned at such a young age that they are hardly remembered for being learned, such as colour mixing, perspective, tones and shading, light and dark, form, shape and texture. They become instinctive to artists long before the thought of a degree enters their head.
People often link qualifications to careers, and I use the term careers loosely. A doctor needs to have a degree to become a doctor and a driver needs to be qualified as a driver in order to get behind the wheel of a car for example, but art is not as clean cut as that.
An artist, to me is someone who has passion, talent, interest and a love of what they are doing and have a way of conveying feelings and thoughts or provoking thoughts and feelings through their work. Art is about portraying what you feel or what you want others to feel and starts somewhere in the heart before it even makes it out into the world. I was an artist before I obtained my qualifications, I have always had passion for learning techniques, skills and how to create certain looks and styles and that interest and love for what I was doing pushed me to get my qualifications. Art isn’t always about producing work that is technique perfect, it is about a journey from the conception of an initial idea all the way through to the finalisation of the piece. This journey, of accepting flaws, learning and honing skills makes someone an artist, not just the end product that has been created.
As a person with an arts-based degree, I don’t see myself as a better artist in regard to someone who has no degree. With the different mediums available, the plethora of skills that are needed and the ways in which art can be produced, anyone who shows passion, skill and a hunger to learn can be considered an artist. This is even truer now, when technology can play such a big part in art production with software such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator being the go-to for many digital artists.
The introduction of digital ways to produce work throws up another question, one that was raised when I took part in Inktober, a drawing prompt challenge that takes part over each day in October, should people who produce digital art be classed as artists? And that question can be answered in much the same way as whether you need an arts-based degree to be considered an artist.
Written by Suzie Tench
Suzi has a degree in Photographic Art, works as a Payments Officer, is a part-time blogger, loves colour and her dog Roxy.