{"id":752,"date":"2005-08-24T00:10:05","date_gmt":"2005-08-24T07:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2005\/08\/defining_the_artist\/"},"modified":"2005-08-24T00:10:05","modified_gmt":"2005-08-24T07:10:05","slug":"defining_the_artist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/defining_the_artist.php","title":{"rendered":"Defining the artist"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are a bundle of initiatives out there working to make communities or organizations more supportive and encouraging to artists. But often, these efforts are missing a crucial cog: a definition of what they mean by ”artist.” I’m not suggesting that there should be a single definition that we all claim as true (that would be a significant waste of collective time). But, rather, every initiative needs to define the target group for their specific purposes…and define it out loud. Without that clear and common definition of the target, it’s hard to know if you’ve succeeded.<\/p>\n

Back in 2002\/2003, the Urban Institute took a reasonable shot at it as part of its report on Investing in Creativity: A Study of the Support Structures for U.S. Artists<\/i> (project details available on the U.S. Artists Report<\/a> web site, where you can also download the final report). Their definition might provide a useful start.<\/p>\n

For the purposes of their initiative, the Urban Institute included as ‘artists’ all adults who:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. have expert artistic skills;\n
  2. have received artistic education or training (formal or informal);\n
  3. attempt to derive income from those skills;\n
  4. and are or have been actively engaged in creating artwork and presenting it to the public.
    \n<\/i>\n<\/ol>\n

    Among that group, ”professional” artists are those that actually do<\/i> derive a portion of income from their skills [as an acoustician acquaintance once said, ”all you need to be an acoustician is a client”].<\/p>\n

    If you need a definition, it’s not a bad place to start. Who’s got another? Let me know by posting a comment below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    There are a bundle of initiatives out there working to make communities or organizations more supportive and encouraging to artists. But often, these efforts are missing a crucial cog: a definition of what they mean by ”artist.” I’m not suggesting that there should be a single definition that we all claim as true (that would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-752","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}