I haven't been able to let this go. I felt there was something else in there that I wasn't quite getting...
The original problem I was exploring was this: what are the differences and similarities between artists, craftspeople, and designers? I was confused at my desires to be all of these things, but when I leave out the artist I am not satisfied. Why doesn't making software fulfil me in the same way writing a story does?
I think I have found an answer that works for me. Something can be beautifully designed, amazingly engineered, perfectly crafted, and yet not be artistic. The magic ingredient is self-expression, or symbolism. There are extra layers of meaning to a work of art.
A Mac is a beautifully designed object, but is not a work of art.
A Mac with a hammer through the screen, mounted on my wall, is art. It is art because you can interpret it, you can put meaning on it, you can wonder at what I was intending by it and what it means in relation to other cultural objects. The artist has given it meaning. It is one-of-a-kind, from my individual unconscious with some extra work to polish it up.
I'll leave copies of art for another day :-)
So the things about my creative work that I love are the meaning I put into it, what I learnt about myself from making it, and the infinite meanings that can be found in it (which I didn't intend!) when it emerges blinking into the light of shared culture.
An artist has to be a designer, or craftsperson, or engineer. But it doesn't have to be the case the other way around.
So - how can I be more the artist?
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