From Artisans to Artists
Reflections on Kala Pola 2024 (Colombo, Sri Lanka)
The OED defines an “artist” as “a person who creates works of art, especially paintings or drawings”. The same defines an “artisan” as “a person who does work that needs a special skill, making things with their hands”.
On the one hand, the two words (and professions) are similar. They involve skilled activities that involve creating things. And unsurprisingly both words stem from the Latin word “Ars,” which means precisely this.
On the other hand, the words (and more so, the professions) are very different.
We respect artists as those who create works that evoke thought, convey messages, or elicit emotional responses, and in the process contribute to the progress of aesthetics in particular, and life in general. Great Artists are among the most revered people in our world.
In contrast, we tend to look down on Artisans. At best, a sort of servant whose labor produces something of practical, but limited value. And at worst, a sort of charlatan who is trying to rip us off.
While we are usually honored to patronize artists and art, we often patronize artisans only out of a sense of charity.
But here’s the critical question: How do you tell Artists and Artisans apart?
This morning, while walking about the Kala Pola (an Art Fair, held annually in Colombo, Sri Lanka), I was pondering precisely this question.
And I came to the following conclusion.
You can’t.
At least not objectively.
Because objectively, there is no difference between an artist and an artisan. But subjectively, there is a world of difference. And it depends not on the people (i.e., artists or artisans). Nor on what they create.
It depends on how other people, especially those who buy and patronize them, view them and their creations.
In other words, the same person could be an artist with respect to one patron, and an artisan with respect to another.
Then, when does a patron see someone as an artist?
Again, there is a clue in something I said before: evoke thought, convey messages, or elicit emotional responses. If the creation succeeds in evoking, conveying, or eliciting, then the creator is an artist.
If not, then no.
The creator, who’s oil painting merely fills the space above headboard of a king-sized bed in a deluxe room in a luxury hotel, eliciting little or no attention from the hundreds of guests who pass in and out, is nothing more than an artisan.
And so, what about Kala Pola 2024? Was it an event of artists or one of artisans?
As with many classic questions, there’s “the good news” and “the bad news.”
The good news: There were many artists. In fact, I’d guesstimate, 80% of the stalls contained art by artists.
The bad news: Only about 20% of the people who visited treated the artists as artists. The vast majority came in search of artisans.
Paradoxically, we are a nation of artists, who insist on only patronizing artisans.
But there is a silver lining.
At least some of the 80%, let’s say 5%, who came in search of artisans, did end up seeing something that evoked thought, conveyed messages, or elicited emotional responses. And so ended up experiencing or even buying some art.
And this is probably the most valuable contribution of events such as Kala Pola.
When the general public (like me) stop seeing artisans, and instead begin to see artists. And in the process, experience — art.
