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Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Are Writers Also Artists?

I consider myself a writer; I've written fiction, blogs, books, etc. I also consider myself an artist; I co-own and run an art studio, with a wide range of media. We dabble in clay, paint, glass, wood, and more. I've considered myself both of these professions or titles for a reasonable amount of time. 

While writing a previous blog post, Motivation & Inspiration, I came across a thought; 'Can writers also be considered artists? Do we create art?' Are the terms, titles, professions interchangeable? Can a writer also be artistic? 

At first, I thought no. 

I thought they were two separate schools of thought. Two very different professions that were not meant to co-mingle. The question came to me when I defined the word inspirationwhich is the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially something creative. In a different blog post, What Is Creativity, I explored what it meant to be creative. If you haven't read that post, it's definitely worth a read. 

Being creative means relating to or involving the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artist work. This was when I wondered if writers were also artists, in a literal sense. I wondered if it was ever meant to be that way, or if the definition allowed for it to be that way. 

Artistic means to be aesthetically pleasing, which means in a way that gives pleasure through beauty. I thought, 'Well, these definitions make me think of visual art, especially when I hear the word aesthetically.' This was when I was certain the word artistic, in its most literal sense, was meant exclusively for artists. 

Though, after defining the word beauty, I was humming a different tune. 

Beauty means a combination of qualities that pleases the intellect or moral sense. At this point the definition takes a turn towards yes for me, and morphs into something that sounds much more 'writer-like'. Before, aesthetically and beauty sounded very 'artist-like', but the words intellect and moral sense definitely make this worth discussion. 

Our moral sense refers to our ability to distinguish between right and wrong and our intellect is our faculty of reasoning and understanding objectively, especially with regard to abstract or academic matters. I've underlined the word abstract, but we will come back to that. So, beauty is a combination of qualities that appeal to our ability to distinguish between right and wrong, and our physical power of reading and understanding, which is very wordy and intelligent. This part of the definition provides a strong argument for writers also being considered artists. 

Abstract simply means the theoretical consideration of something. At first, I wasn't really sure; when I hear the word abstract, I definitely think of art, such as a painting with weird lines and no real point. But, that was just the word. For me, the actual definition changed the game and made me think that writers could absolutely be considered artists. I myself believe that when I am writing, I am creating something that is aesthetically pleasing, which stimulates and appeals to our mind and is mostly based on theory instead of practical applications. Of the utmost importance, at the very core, I believe that I am being creative every single time I write. 

I'm curious to know what my readers think, whether you're writers, authors, bloggers, artists, etc. My last controversial topic of Authors vs Writers was a huge hit, and I hope you all enjoy this one just as much! 

As always, thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this post, leave a comment below and share your thoughts. Be sure to share with your friends and tweet at me @TresaWriter! Happy reading and writing my friends. 

2 comments:

  1. That was a very interesting read! :)

    I've always considered writers to be artists. When you think about it, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to say that other professional story tellers (e.g. the classic fairy tale story-teller, film directors, comic book artists...) are artists, while writers aren't. Stripped down to a very basic level, the only difference is that they do have a ready made visual representation for their story, while writers need the reader to create a mental image. Writers paint with words to create colours.

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    1. That's very beautifully put, Kate! I couldn't agree more. Thank you for taking the time to comment.

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