Frustration Friday - Appreciate the Artist

It's frustration friday and it's time to rant.

Let's talk artists.  No, not in the negative.  In fact, I actually think artists get too little respect and too much B.S. from people.  So, that's the subject.

Artists could use more respect.

If there's a geeky profession I see dissed too often it's artists.  They're impractacal, or they're posers, or they're not doing "real" jobs, or they're unoriginal - and of course they're just stupid because they are in a job that won't make them rich.

You get the idea.  Artists can use more respect.

Go into a bookstore.  See all those book covers?  Artists made them.

Like comics and manga - artists.

Video games?  Artists design characters, textures, models, and more.

Like animation - well, duh, that's a given.

Think how much of your environment has been jazzed up by artists, from paintings to sculpture, to just clever use of good carpet and the right furniture.

Artists do a lot.  If anything I think we take them for granted since their work is everywhere.  We get used to it.

There are also very successful artists.  We just don't always know their names unless they have some prominent work.  We don't think about the person who decorated the hotel lobby, we don't read the credits for texture design in our video games, we don't think more than five seconds about the book cover that drew our attention.  They're working away and we forget about them - but they're there working hard and paying the bills and being successful.

So you know what?  If you're an artist or know one, the next time someone disses an artist or doesn't appreciate them, set them straight.

- Steven Savage

Comments

[illustrator, goshdarnit! :D]

Yeah, but the problem is that "artist" is a term that's been bastardized by certain corners of the "art" community. The people that put on a museum exhibit and it's literally a wastebasket full of trash, or a broom, or whatever. And people get told it's "art."

A lot of the people you're talking about are "illustrators." And the "artists" look down their oh so hoity toity noses at them. (Because to be an illustrator, you need talent. Whereas to be an "artist," you need to be able to bull$#!% well.)

So while I agree with the basic premise of the post, I also think that there's a certain corner of the art world that's really tarnished the term "artist." All the people sticking junk on pedestals, and then denouncing anyone who doesn't sing their praises. All the people who don't consider book cover artists, texture artists, comic artists, animation artists, or any of a hundred other useful artists to be artists at all, but rather "just illustrators." The people who scoff at Norman Rockwell, because he was "just an illustrator" notwithstanding the fact that he painted several pieces that are arguably some of the most powerful pieces of artistic commentary on the 20th century.
(e.g., http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ed/The-problem-we-all-live-with-norman-rockwell.jpg)

So yes, people should appreciate real artists. Or maybe they should appreciate illustrators. Since those are the guys and gals that actually make something worth looking at.

[Steven Savage]

Well that made a good point that we're using artist as too much of a catch-all. Food for thought.

And regading Normal Rockwell, I think he should DEFINITELY be respected and doesn't get enough. His mixture of realism and emotional content is very impressive (and his sense of humor)

- Steven Savage