She asked me if I’m a normal artist

She asked me if I’m a normal artist, and I said yes. Without thinking. Don’t trust your instincts.

Then I asked her ‘and you, are you a normal non-artist?’ I just couldn’t think what the opposite of artist could be. It’s like a bus driver for example. What is the opposite of a bus driver? 

Fine art is one of those occupations that has mutated into blobs of itself. Now you can be a curator and never create a thing but you can still be considered an artistic genius. Or you can be called a Creative whatever that really means.

But you are either an artist or absolutely incapable of being one. Of course, we have to believe that all people could be artists, but in the end you either are one or you are not. You can say, ‘well I could’ve been a racing car driver,’ but you just cannot say, ‘I could’ve been an artist.’ I guess you could say, ‘I could’ve been a successful artist,’ but that’s full of contradictory things. 

I really don’t want to have to debate how success is measured in art. It used to mean that you could starve for long periods of time and yet still make beautiful things. Now it means being able to afford studio rental in a fabulous place.

Time spares no-one and nothing and eventually all your monuments become playgrounds for someone else’s children.