I remember some time ago I had written a paper on art. My teacher at the time asked me to discuss the "role" of the artist and their responsibility to the art world.

To me the term "role of the artist" is a little pretentious. It makes it sound like some kind of 9 to 5 job with standards and responsibilities. It is true that 'artists' in the broadest of terms comes with some kind of expectation, but is there truly any kind of mandate of responsibilities in regards to their "role" that a person has to uphold?

In my opinion, an artist can be a lot of different things. A painter, sculptor, singer, songwriter, musician, dancer, actor, writer... they're all forms of "art". I have worked with many artists, and there are generally two kinds of artists. One type is the artist to works for themselves... to create what they're inspired to do. The other type of artist works for the people, creating to inspire others.

In both cases, I've found that artists are driven to create based on some kind of intangible flow or affluence that is within them. Artists create because this "artistic" or whatever it may be stream or content is infecting them. It's seething within them to the point of driving them to create in order to get this inspiration out of their physical body into either a tangible or intangible form. In the simplest terms, they can not eat or sleep because this creativity consumes them and they are driven to release it into the world. That is what art is all about. It is a living, breathing, thing that is released into tangible forms by those who are blessed enough to have the ability.

So in regards to the "role of the artist", perhaps truly the only "role" or responsibility of theirs is to create... to release this artistic energy into some kind of artwork that will inspire others. Their only role is to inspire and create... in the hopes of urging the same fiery creativity in others who view their work. The only role of an artist is to just be and to inspire in hopes that the beauty they release into the world will in turn birth more beauty from others' inspiration... and this is why art is perhaps one of the most valuable mediums in society today.