Art. Artist. When you think of these words, these simple yet undoubtably important words, what do you picture in your mind?
Do you picture an artist, wizened from years if not centuries of perfecting their artistical craft, nimble at hand, strong of soul and mind buzzing with the flames of passion and creativity?
Do you picture a painter, someone who is most at home in the land of acrylic, oils, and paintbrushes galore?
Or do you picture someone who creates art via stories, stories and more stories, stories that blossom with every tap of their well-worn keyboard, with every stroke of a typewriter, with every letter of a script?
Art, my friend, is a concept best defined by subjective approval. What is considered beautiful, would be viewed as arboreous by the public.
Art is also something which is communicated via animation, drawing, scripts, writing or the like. No matter how you flex your creative chops, at the end of the day you are creating art.
Artists, on the other hand, are what bring art to life; without their guidance and creative genius, then art as you know it wouldn't exist.
Artists come in all shapes and sizes, from writers to background designers to drawers to even those who are gifted with the drive to create, to share their artistic integrity with the world. No matter what profession an artist chooses to follow, they are all brought together by a sharing of a creative spark.
Cooks, artisans, sculptors, poets, artists, doll makers... These are all professions that involve creativity, spark, and passion galore.
Chefs are in-sync with their creative spark, with some chefs taking food and giving it a multi-sensory makeover, one which enables it to tell a story via visuals, smell, taste, touch, texture, sight, sound and so forth.
And then there's me.
To me, art serves as a way of expressing ideas and concepts you want to share with the world but can't write them down properly. I tend to struggle with vocalising my ideas to a wider audience as I feel much more comfortable writing as a way of expression rather than vocalising my creative thoughts.
It has helped me to write all manner of stories big and small, aided me in creating all manner of characters both original and not, and (perhaps most importantly) has served to revitalise me when I felt tired, exhausted, and just plain bored by the hustle and bustle of life.
As such I do not view art in a professional or philosophical light; rather I see it in a creative light, one which must be expressed via drawing, writing, or creating characters using your mind.
Art can also be diverse in the sense of containing all manner of paintings, drawings, and so forth that appeal to some groups but not others. For example I enjoy creating fictional characters and writing descriptions for them as it is my way of making the impossible possible.
Some characters fly, others don't. Some have special strengths, others don't. Some have special powers; others are only human. The world is full of problems, and as such I create characters as a way of dealing with them in my own way. They have powers to solve problems such as poverty, world hunger, global warming and so forth.
The one thing they all have in common is that they were created as ways of telling stories that I normally wouldn't have been able to tell under normal circumstances, stories that are so far out there, so unbelievable, so wonderous that I honestly wouldn't blame you for not believing them at first glance.
Sure it may sound a little unorthodox, but it serves its purpose well. And in the end, isn't that what creativity is all about, no?
