How would you translate the below sentence?
「芸術家として生き芸術家として死にたいです」
I understand 「~として」can be translated roughly as "As~", but I'm not sure if anything changes when they are chained? Also, does 「生き芸術家」have any unique meaning, or is it just "living artist."
My current guess is something along the lines of "I want to die as an artist and as a living artist".
芸術家として生き、芸術家として死にたいです。
I want to live as an artist and die as an artist.
(I added a comma after 生き to help you parse the sentence correctly)
Nothing surprising happens when there are two として in a sentence. The first 芸術家として modifies 生き ("live as an artist"), and the second 芸術家として modifies 死に(たい) ("die as an artist"). 生き is the masu-stem of 生きる, and this form can connect two clauses like the te-form. See: て versus combining-form for joining clauses
