Art at work?

*I recently picked up a hardcopy of Identity Designed: The Definitive Guide to Visual Branding by David Aire (2019). It's a visually beautiful book, as well as a thoughtful, insightful reading. One of the quotes in the early part of the book struck me...

"Design has to work. Art does not."

- Donald Judd

These words rattled around in my head for weeks. What does it mean to be an artist - and is that fundamentally different than being a designer? Can I view myself as an artist/designer, or are those parts of me cleaved apart by function and purpose?  Maybe. But maybe not. I am quite literally nobody in light of Donald Judd, so my two cents are just that. But it is possible that Design is Art, but working art? I like to think of Design as the Art that labors to bring beauty to the otherwise mundane or tedious. As a designer, if I can make the Sisyphean task of laundry a bit more interesting and add just a spark of imagination - that’s where I want to be.