What makes someone an artist? I've been thinking...

I don't believe in talent. It doesn't come down from the heavens.. It's not inherited, there's no "art" gene. You aren't born with it. Screw that, if it were really so predetermined, we wouldn't need art classes. Everyone draws stick figures in preschool. It's not so much about which are the ones who start drawing, so much as it is which are the ones who stop.

So what makes people NOT artists?

So people who aren't artists are people who give up on it.

Why?

I was thinking about this.. and after seeing some of this going on first hand, I figured it out. The difference between artists and non artists are that, when an artist draws something and it doesn't look perfect, they ignore that and finish the picture anyway. People who aren't artists look at the picture that isn't perfect and give up. Quit.

Everyone draws when they're a kid.. I ask people why they stopped and it's always the same reason.. The frustration over things not looking right.

Then there are some artists who feel that frustration, but don't quit. They draw something, and they don't like it, but instead of quitting, instead of finishing the picture, they become obsessed with fixing it. And those are the people who because absolutely amazing artists, but who are at the same time never happy and never like anything they do.

But most artists are just the kind of people who keep persistantly drawing, even when frustrated.
One doesn't even have to be good at art to call onesself an artist.. It's more of a frame of mind than anything.
Everyone can pick up a pencil and draw something. But there are those of us who do so willingly, those of us who call ourselves artists.

This also means that all types of people can become artists. You don't have to be a starving loser in the attic that's strewn with paints.. You don't have to even be creative. I've seen totally popular stuck up people that can draw gorgeously and twitched in jealousy.. There are messy people, neat people, sane people, depressed people, total bitches, best friends.. It could be anyone. They just have to have that thing in them.. some need to keep drawing, despite all the flaws.

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