I do or did artsy fartsy things like music, writing, acting, photography, painting.
Funny thing is, that all of my close friends express themselves artistically in one way or another - I am not friends with one person who doesn’t have a career or serious extra-cirricular hobby that isn’t artistic.
For the record, I can think of some people I know who don’t like the arts and I can’t stand them. Hm, that explains a lot now that I think about it.
Uke - That’s the one. Go get #2!
SaxFace - sort of along your thoughts: Sometimes I feel like I can “see” things other people can’t quite “get”. I guess that’s another definition of an artist: one who can perceive something (a building, a blank canvas, a song, a film) on a different level than others. You can “see” the possibilities of the blank canvas, or the work that went into a finished piece.
Sax: Do people really ADMIT to something like that? I would react to somebody saying “I don’t like music” or “I don’t like painting” or “I don’t like theater” about the same way I would respond to some white guy stating that he doesn’t like black people.
Soup: Excellent point. I think folks like us are the next level up on the evolutionary scale. <grin>
Uke, I am not lying. Last weekend I saw a “friend” that I hasn’t seen in five years and had to listen to her horrible complaining drivel about anything and anyone with creativity. It was a disaster.
She made fun of my roommate (an animator and kick ass painter), saying he’d never get a real job, money or a wife doing arty stuff for a living. What a dipshit.
Her personality can be described as: dry and dull.
As far as some people not admitting it, I happen to be familiar with a lot of egotistical, opinionated nitwits who think their thoughts are truth and don’t hesitate to tell the world.
Silly philistines.
I think a lot of people say they don’t like art because they’re afraid to admit they don’t know much about it.
Had a confrontation with a History professor years ago about being an art major.
“Well THAT must be hard.” He scoffed sarcasticly.
“Yeah, well I’d rather DO something with my life instead of READING about what other people did with theirs.” I replied.
Needless to say, I had to drop that class ASAP.
I think art is the expression of one’s universal being – art is a verb, and it is also the physical manifestation of this expression - music, paintings, books, poems, pastries, haircuts, drawings, films, collages, flower arrangements, clothes (I believe a person’s style is a person’s art), furniture, buildings, photos, etc. - and I do mean etc.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Art is something that seems to make some people feel insecure. When you declare yourself an artist, some people take it as an personal affront. I think everyone has the potential to be an artist, but it is dependent on your ability to be open and honest with yourself and with other people and this is a scary prospect, because of the fear, probably a biological/evolutionary fear based on survival, that you will be rejected - that you will not be validated, that your art won’t be good enough. But, I believe the only way your art can be not good enough is if you’re not honest. Do poodles fail at being dogs because they don’t look like rottweilers?
Uh, I play music, draw, write and obsessively re-arrange the furniture in my apartment.
Ah! I thought I was the only one who obsessively re-arranges their furniture! Though I’m not sure if aesthetic neurosis counts as art, though…hey, what about cooking? I mean real pulling-gourmet-meals-out-of-an-empty refrigerator variety. Cause I kick tookus at creating something yummy from nothing at all.
au contraire: aesthetic neurosis is an art, namely the hallmark of architects.
but instead of obsessively re-arranging furniture, we obsessively re-arrange walls, buildings, and city blocks. occasionally they’ll even let us build these things.
(unfortunately for you. heheh.)
Painter here, although my BFA was in drawing and I currently work as a website designer. But I love paint (acrylic) best. I prefer to work from life (yes, nudes), and I’m also a halfway decent sculptor and a tolerable potter, with some minor abilities in design. Oh, and some of the Dopers think I write OK. 
Visit my website for some rather outdated work of mine. One of these days I’ll put the new stuff up. Here’s one new one.
In just a few weeks, I’ll go back to my training as a ‘sequential artist’, which is pretty much an extensive training in the art of the comic book. I’ve been taking art since high school, and this is going to be my second year of college. So far, so good.
I’ve got a webpage too, but I haven’t updated it for, oh, almost a year now.
Mostly I draw comic characters, any medium but I prefer watercolor, pencils (color or not), and pen-and-ink. I’ve also done some sculpture.
Yup. I do a lot of different things, but for now, suffice to say I’m in the IMDb.
Our woodwind quintet disbanded in 1991, when the flutist quit to spend time to write a math textbook (to maintain professorship?). Since he was the source of our free music (he checked it out of the university music library) and the bassoonist was greatly overstretched, (belonging to several orchestras and ensembles within an area of about 100 miles) we never reorganized. (BTW, anyone know of a good source of mail-order double reeds?)(Wood only)
I do some art type things by making pictures with different types of paper and pens, oil pastels, markers, and some types of recycled materials.
I play some guitar and alto recorder, and probably play the radio the best (very old joke). Minnesota Public Radio is my favorite station.
You’re supposed to carve your OWN reeds, you lazy oboe player, you.
But I did try, and still have the blanks and tools. In my defense, I do my own touch-ups.
Loved to draw all my life. Went to art school. Even got to study for two semesters under one of my idols, Burne Hogarth. (Of “Tarzan” comics fame, and those “Dynamic Drawing” books.)
I love doing portraits and figure drawing, mostly. I also picked up ceramics, and paint and decorate pottery. I have two potters wheels and two kilns. (I am very proud of this!) I was in lots of art shows and a few galleries back in Calif. (even the Ansel Adams gallery up in Yosemite! The jewel in my crown, as you might imagine!)
When I moved out-of-state a while ago, I got side-tracked. I did have an interesting job being an artist in a photo lab. Learned a lot. But the photo lab folded. I currently have a dead-end (not too awful, but not art-related) job now. Am currently learning digital art on the side. But I need to do more pottery! It’s difficult though - I have to ship in all my clay from CA, since the clay out here SUCKS. And I can go through hundreds of pounds of clay in a relatively short amount of time. Those shipping fees add up.
Wow, before I got to the end, I was chuckling to myself and wondering if I’m allowed to call myself an artist if I count Burne Hogarth as my major influence. And you got to study with him, yosemitebabe? I am officially jealous.
My problem is the people I practice drawing in dynamic poses are more often than not comic book characters. Not that comics isn’t art, I just don’t consider what I do art. I doodle. But I do it competently, so that’s something, I suppose.
Let’s see. I sing. Mostly my own stuff, a cappella, and usually only in front of people who cannot talk. (I happen to know a lot of ‘em.) I write, some poetry, haiku lately, also bits and pieces of a story too long for a single novel. I also take pictures, digitally manipulate them, print them and frame them. I have a few in my house, and gave a few away. I make my own icons, and wallpaper. I have a set of picture greeting cards, some with haiku, some with simple greetings, some blank. (I could email you a Microsoft Publisher copy of one, if you want.) I used to do heroic couplets impromptu while walking, but I am way out of practice for that. It was a lot of fun, though.
I make stuff that forms a gestalt statement. Hard to define what I mean, so I will describe one. I made a place setting in my home with empty dish, empty glass, blank table, empty chair, blank picture frame, and empty candlesticks, empty vase. I had a blank invitation sitting there, with a blank place card.
I can make roses out of marzipan, or clay. I cook, too, although I don’t do much artsy cooking. My rock polisher is busted, so I can’t do any new rock stuff. (My recycle bin icon is a basket full of my polished rocks.)
I never thought of myself as an artist, though.
“Art is for man’s sake.”
Tris
Um, professional electric guitarist. Instead of a paint brush I use a guitar and create sonic landscapes with it. I love to write music. It is an art. Don’t you other artists find your art so soothing and relaxing? Just like whenever you’re havin’ a rough day you come home pick up the pen, paintbrush, instrument–dive into your own world, release all the tension, and sometimes create something really beautiful. I love my guitar.
silo-
Oh yeah, exactly! When I’m drawing my comics (especially while I’m inking) I lose track of time and completely chill out. Like you said, it’s MY world on that piece of paper.
How can anybody not have an outlet like that?
Take up the flute.
Not only do you lose yourself in the sound you’re making, you’re also practising deep breathing (I probably use twice the volume of air when I play my flute as when I play my saxophone…or even my tuba.)
It’s yoga, man.
