What is an artist?

To me, an artist is a person who creates work to say something. Either through music, painting, writing, etc., I feel an artist wants to display his/her work in order to identify a subject or express some type of emotion or thought out loud. I've never considered myself an artist because I don't like to show my true creative side. Perhaps it's a fear of vulnerability and rejection, but I've categorized myself as a designer since 8th grade. I feel the difference between art and design is that a designer is more of a problem solver, which is something I've always been good at. Perhaps I have a lot to learn about art and others, and maybe Otis will change the way I feel about the 'artist' definition