E H Gombrich

The E H Gombrich book 'The History of Art' opens with the quote "There is no such thing as art. There are only artists."

While this is probably a good dictum for art critics faced with mountains of potential works to look at, just sort out the pile by the recognised artists and feel free to ignore the rest. It is probably not such a good dictum for creative people. If you adhere to the Gombrich dictum then if you are an artist then everything you do is of merit no matter how insubstantial or just plain bad, and if you are not an 'artist' then no level of technical accomplishment or effort will elevate what you have done.

For the practitioner it is probably better to focus on the 'craft' rather than the 'art'. Simply try to make what you do as good as you can, and leave it to others to determine whether what you are doing is actually art. If it has a unique voice, that enough people want to listen to, then it is likely to be called art, if not then at least it is as good as you can make it.