Originally posted by lazs2
I am not an artist jb.. anymore than you are. I have talents that you could never achieve tho. I can work metal and I make it into what I seen in my head.
I make no claims to being an artist any more than the downs syndrome kid down the street who makes that funny noise with his mouth.
I have spent decades learning to do what I do and sometimes... I do something that others like me admire... mostly I am mediocre tho compared to them.
Lots of people like what I do. I get them coming up to me and telling me. I certainly do not think that they should be funding me with money extorted from them by my government.
I don't do what I do for the money... the truth is that I "suffer" for my art... it costs me a fortune and If I am able to sell it... it is for a fraction of what it is worth in time and material..
If you were to be truly fair then everyone is an artist... in which case...
everyone deserves equal funding wouldn't you say?
In that case... everyone pays 6 cents and everyone gets 6 cents.
nope... I don't know what art is and I don't think I am an artist... but.. I admit it.
Can you say the same?
lazs
yes i can. and i know lots of things that art can be. including what you do. i have no problem thinking like that. its easy.
i have also spent a great many years on what i do and like you, there are things that i can do that you cant even begin to consider doing. i mold all sorts materials into all sorts of things every day of my life and make things come from out of my head and into reality every single day. i spend most, if not nearly all of my time searching for ways to plug them into the grid in a way that will further my work. i think of nothing else most of the time.
say yah. i'd say i'm an artist. so what?
not because it is some special thing, but because it is my chosen vocation and i work very hard at it and frankly i resent the notion that i would be somehow elitist to make such a claim. (which you seem to infer by your words) or that there is some right or wrong way to be. whatever lasz.
i dont ask for grants. never have. never will. i have just made an arguement that the NEA and various grant agencies do serve a purpose that gets missed by people like you who fixate on minutia to further your bull in a china shop tactics.
i dont have a problem making money as an artist either. i fully intend to for the rest of my life.
so what.