To Change or Not To Change

Someone asked me a question yesterday about my email address.

For years, even back when we were on aol, in the dark ages, my main email address has been artistdf.  It wasn't the first thing that came into my mind when I created my first address.  The first thing was dfartist but for obvious reasons I abandoned that!  Even though we have changed providers a few times, I still use artistdf as my main address (of course the @ part has changed) and people in groups and places often recognize the name.

Recently I have been thinking about getting rid of this address because of the amount of junk that comes through it.  After so many years, signing up for so much stuff online with the same (or close) address, I probably get at least 100 spam/unwanted emails per day.  Even using cleaners.  I am kind of tired of it.  Especially since I have more than one email address to check each day, counting work and church.  But I still hesitate to change it.  I have always liked it.

Back to the question.  When I gave the person my email address, she said, "Oh, so you paint oil paintings?"  And I told her that I have done so in the past but I am not very active with painting currently.  She then asked me if I was a sculptor.  I said that I had done some of that at different times on a small scale but not currently working on anything sculptural.  She then asked me, "What kind of artist are you, then?" with a puzzled look on her face.  I started naming off all the things I create or have created in the past, the different media used, etc.  She stopped me in mid reply and said I probably should be calling myself "Crafter" and not "Artist".  Now this has been a huge discussion topic for a long time in the artsy/craftsy world, I have heard all the sides and arguments.  I didn't want a rehash.

Many people imply that a crafter is below the level of an artist.  So I pointed out that most definitions of crafter include an allusion to artistry.  Therefore a crafter is one with great skill in the manual arts, or has an occupation or trade (or hobby) requiring manual dexterity and artistic skill.  A crafter is not by definition less talented or creative than an artist but has to have a high artistic ability to be considered a craftsman.

So either way I look at it, I still think of myself as an artist, regardless of anyone else's consideration. I don't think she got it, but I did the best I could for her.

Now I still have to decide whether to keep the address because of the mail load.  Didn't really help me in that regard but there you go.  At least I blogged today!