What is art?

I've been wrestling with this question in one form or another for a while. I still have no answer I can trust fully, and I suspect there is none. Still, it bothers me that we are in a time when anything is art if it is deemed so by anyone who identifies themselves as an artist. On the one hand, I like the egalitarian aspect of it and its openness as a form of expression to anyone. On the other hand, the lack of acknowledged criteria to distinguish among all the art expressions and objects is frustrating, even discouraging. Simply putting the work"professional" of "fine" in front of art does little to help.

Lately, I've been thinking that maybe we have it backwards. The artist doesn't make the art. Rather art makes the artist. That is, think about what should accomplish, what demands it should make on the viewer, what its purpose is, what demands it should make on you. Then become the artist that makes that art.