Artist is a descriptive term applied to a person who engages in an activity deemed to be an art. It is also used in a qualitative sense of a person creative in, innovative in, or adept at, an artistic practice.

Most often, the term describes those who create within a context of 'high culture', activities such as drawing, painting, sculpture, acting, dancing, writing, filmmaking, photography and music — people who use imagination, and talent or skill, to create works that can be judged to have an aesthetic value. Art historians and critics will define as artists those who produce art within a recognised or recognisable discipline.

The term is also used to denote highly skilled people in non-"arts" activities, as well — crafts, medicine, alchemy, mechanics, mathematics, defense (martial arts) and architecture, for example. The designation is applied to illegal activities, like a "scam artist". The term 'artist' could also refer to a con artist.

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NPR Topics: Arts & Entertainment

Liz Phair Revisits 'Exile'
Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:16:00 -0400
Fifteen years after she released her groundbreaking album Exile in Guyville, the femme rocker is on tour, performing the album live in front of audiences. She discusses Exile's influence on herself as well as the music industry.
Poking Fun At Stereotypes In 'Allah Made Me Funny'
Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:25:00 -0400
A new film, Allah Made Me Funny, follows three Muslim men as they perform at comedy clubs around the U.S., chronicling how they make comedy out of sometimes painful experiences in a post-Sept. 11 America. Comedians Azhar Usman, Mo Amer and Preacher Moss discuss what informs their humor.
Is America 'Too Insular' For A Literary Nobel?
Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:12:00 -0400
Horace Engdahl, a Nobel Prize official, commented on Wednesday that the United States is "too isolated" and "too insular" to generate literary Nobel laureates. He said Europe remains the "center of the literary world."

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