the blurry line

LB wrote a post today about a topic I’ve been thinking about lately.  She’s just now voicing the identity crisis that I’ve been having in my noodle for ages now.  Am I an artist?  Typically art is considered a drawing, painting, or sculpture…I’ll give you that.  In my personal definition I’d go farther than that.  I’ve seen some amazing collages I’d call art.  My aunt is a is creates amazing basketry that can’t be anything other than art.  I’d consider much of the metal work I’ve been oogling over lately to most definitely be art.  And I would and have always considered LB’s pieces to always be art.  And just recently I’d put my own debate behind me, it will always be there, but I’m wasn’t listening for a while.  That’s when I started making progress…making decisions about what to do with all the flowers that are spewing out of me. 

And then I went to Borders book store last weekend.  I was browsing the new magazines looking at some recipe mags and then making my way to the new bead mags.  The bead mags at Borders are under the “crafts” section, not a big surprise that is usually where they are found.  I’d been griping recently that they don’t carry the “Art Jewelry” mag or some of the lapidary mags I’d been interested in.  Well last weekend I went to the other side of the magazine racks to browse that area..mostly men’s mags about cars and women.  But I did find an “Art” section and in it I found photography, sculpture, weaving magazines.  And then there it was “Art Jewelry” as well as a couple of other metal magazines.  Some of these other metal mags were just as step by step walking you through projects as any bead mag.  So who decides that metal jewelry is art where bead jewelry is craft.  I know I don’t make jewelry but technically my stuff fits more into beadwork than metal work…so are my flowers craft?  I work really hard at them…I create them from nothing, I don’t use patterns, and a most of the time my stuff almost makes itself.

I know this is a debate that is one of those where the line is so blurry there will never be a clear answer.  It is also a debate that will never completely leave my head.  But my husband just told me something that makes the most sense right now….“It’s up to you to decide what it is…art or what you want it to be.”  He’s right…it shouldn’t matter to anyone but the person who created it.  And that’s what could in the end make it art.

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