What is an Artist?

What is an artist?  Is it some sort of special, divine, inborn talent that makes an artist?  Is it accolades and awards from people with a pile of degrees and a long resume?

I have begun to think that perhaps you become an artist when you declare yourself an artist; when you have something important to say with your art and you say it.  

You don't need the approval of an expert from an ivory tower to declare you an artist.  You don't need a special parchment with an even more special seal.  You don't even need for your nearest and dearest to approve of you and what you create.  (Sure, it would be nice, but it isn't essential).

Remember Van Gogh?  Remember Monet and his scrappy bands of Impressionist rejects with their Salon Des Refuses?  Think of Duchamp and his two million dollar urinal.  It was art because he said it was art.

Pick up a brush, a stylus, a handful of clay, and say what needs to be said.

You are an artist.