What is an artist?

I get into an argument about what an artist is around the table. 

It goes something like this - caroline has just started doing a study into art therapy, and is writing as essay on what an artist is. I ask caroline, who is sitting smugly enjoying a glass of wine, what she feels an artist is. I sense that its a bad question at this time, but I follow through anyhow. 

"An artist is someone who expresses the soul".. She answers..

"So you feel there is something spiritual about being an artist?" 

"You are getting too lost in the words... You can't define what an artist is.."

"Well, we have the word anyhow, and words without definition are meaningless, they are just empty shells... "

They try and interrupt me, but I continue, in a more forceful voice, 

"stop interrupting me, you haven't even given me space to finish. If the word artist has no meaning, then I might as well go "Bla bla bla, bla, nnaaa baaa, chhaaa," and it would have as much meaning as saying "the artist is someone who expresses the soul..."

 We do know that the way I say things communicates enormous amounts of information. In a way, you all get a feeling of what I am trying to say, but only in terms of the underlying energy and emotion of what I am saying, not the content I am trying to express." 

We are getting confused within the vagaries of what an artist is... The argument becomes more about expressing our emotional frustrations than about actual conflicts of definition. 

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My brother joe feels so sad, can't understand why he is feeling like this. He is crying, weeping. Its like there are trapped emotions blocked up inside. I am able to see these emotions better than the others. I see that he needs a tree to express these emotions to. 

I wander into the woods. There are bit of paper lying on the grass between the trees. When I look at them, they are pages of richards teaching material. I know that when the spring comes they will have all disappeared into the ground. 

New carfield house - trying to get there on scateboard, and talk to pete at same time. 

Mum drops me off at a scout hut right up in hillsborough, because off the blue I thought it would be a good idea to go there. 

I feel so strange getting out here.