6:05 PM 04/31/2004 - Chicago
Wittig quote of 2004... "There is 'being a painter', and there is 'being an artist'. I know for a fact that I am a painter. Whether I am an artist or not, is none of my business."
I started painting and drawing in January,1996. It is now late March 2004, and the intervening 8+ years have been a steady, full time study of every aspect of the field of fine visual arts. 2004 is the final phase of my 'student period' of study... the phase in which I pull everything I have learned in the past eight years into a cohesive whole, that is also a functioning business, capable of providing me with a steady income... enough to live on, and to permit me to continue my work. By year's end, I will consider myself a 'journeyman painter'. Of course, this title is self-applied... there are no guilds, or schools, conferring this title upon me. But I seriously doubt that anyone, or any guild, in any century, would find my current abilities lacking.
I'll never call myself an artist, though. Other people might... that's their business, not mine... but as the quote above states, whether I am an artist or not, is none of my business. The reason this is so, is because I have decided for myself what my business is, and 'being an artist', isn't it.
I do not think that there even is such a thing as 'an artist'. I think that occasionally, a painter, or a dancer, or a writer, or a poet, etc., might produce a work of art... but I think that such an event is an anomaly, and not a usual event. Picasso was a painter, and some of his paintings were works of art... but that determination... whether a particular painting was a 'work of art', or just another painting, was a determination that was rendered not by Picasso, or anyone with a degree in art from a university, or an art critic... it was a determination rendered 'after the fact', by the entire social entity's group consensus, regarding the painting's value, relative to all the other social values that the social entity holds to be true.
Therefore, whether my work is 'art' or 'not art'... is none of my business... it is society's business.
In fact, spending too much time thinking about this, or actively trying to 'produce art', will probably adversely affect the quality of my work. I suspect that the 'nature of art', is that it is to a great degree... unselfconscious. If I am right, then a painting has the best chance of succeeding as art, if it is done simply as an act of painting, without any thought being given to its long-term value, as a 'work of art'.
This is one good reason, for me to chuck the 'artist' notion, off the list of things I have to pay attention to.
I decided on the title 'journeyman painter', because it does a pretty honest job of describing where I stand. I'm a painter... that is what I do... and after over eight years of work and study in the field, if I still refer to myself as an apprentice painter, then I might as well refer to myself as a 'nitwit painter', instead. Heh.
So, as a painter, I know what I am doing... walls... ceilings... canvas... panels... paper... the works. I can pretty well paint anything I want to paint, and get it good enough on the first try, so that someone will buy it, and so it will still look good, 50 or 100 years from now. So I'm definitely a painter, and just as definitely, not an apprentice in the field. That leaves two other possibilities... that I am either a journeyman painter, or a master painter. Since I've only just begun developing my public reputation, and am still in the process of even approaching earning a living wage at my work, it would be premature to call myself a master painter... that is something that will probably not transpire for another eight or ten years, of steady work in the field, at the very least.
'Artist' is, at present, an over-used and badly abused word. Its value to describe anything concrete has been virtually destroyed by the lemming-like hordes of self-proclaimed artists, now carpeting the landscape. If everybody who picks up a brush, or a musical instrument, or steps out onto a stage, or writes a poem, piece of literature, play, etc., is an 'artist', with no regard for their level of competence or how their work is judged by society... then everyone is an 'artist'... and if everyone is an artist... then no-one is an artist.
So... I will stick with being a journeyman painter, for as long as it takes, for me to feel comfortable calling myself a master of my craft.
...and I will let society decide, what it wants to make, of the paintings I produce.