Art, Round II

I figured I'd just go ahead and make a new post concerning marty's comments.

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what i'm curious to know is what would you call art if no one ever saw it, now that you don't consider it art? and what then is the artist? and what does that do to the merit of this wannabe-art?
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These are great questions. I don't think that we have a word in the English language for this "wannabe-art." Perhaps it could be called potential art that becomes actualized when seen/heard. Art should be seen as a process, from conception to presentation. This means that the person is still an artist, even if they never have a fully actualized piece of art.

Regarding the merit, if the process is arrested, then part of the value certainly is lost. An idea is less than a symphony, and a symphony is less if it is never heard.

With all this said, I still haven't fully convinced myself on this issue. I was talking to Trevor the other day about classifying artists into two subgroups: authors and performers, with authors taken in a broad sense.