For the past month I've been really rethinking what it means to be a digital artist. Obviously it means that one creates art using digital tools or manipulates their art with the aid of these computer tools. But what have these tools done to artists? What does the artist do with the tools? How has it affected us as a community?
I believe that to be an artist in the truest sense is to share a "gift." This gift can be an idea, a thought, a feeling about something the artist has experienced in their own life and shares with others. It should be personal; something of deep truth the artist has realized about their time on Earth.
Most digital art I see lacks a gift. It simply does not have a truth to pass on. I think their are many factors in this. Perhaps one fact is that most artists have turned into commerical artists, and create art based on someone elses gift. Have we passed the gift creation on to others and allowed ourselves to only become crafters?
Maybe in the mass migration to digital tools we left behind the human element. Maybe we are so busy creating art containing another's truth that we forgotten what our role is. Artists are not just storytellers, we are modern shaman. It is our job to experience dreams, dive into the spirit world, and communicate these universal truths to anyone willing to listen.
I don't think that being a digital artist means any more or less then a traditional artist. To me, it's just another medium. I feel that we as digital artists are just wrapped up with making the next great piece for a showpiece, so we can secure a job and thus, survive. Digital tools help this process go much faster. But I think we really have to ask ourselves, why are we artists to begin with? Do you really want to SAY something or do you just want to MAKE something? I believe there's a monumental different here.
I've had a bit of an awakening. I myself am guilty of falling to the category of making art for art's sake. I have made things because they simply "look cool." Although I put my soul into the character, illustration, or design...am I really communicating an idea from deep inside me? Not all the time, but I try.
Now that I've completed a new demo reel (it's being scored this week). I'm taking some time out to better myself as an artist. I want to pass on something deeper then a character model. I realized that I have so much to say, that's not being say. You as a reader probably have no real idea of who I am and what I have to say about this world. That is something that I want to fix. That's what I feel I should be doing.
