What is an artist?

I grew up in a family full of them. Perhaps growing up is too close to a white lie, not about all of it, just the growing up part. The artistic family that I had heard so much about might as well have been living on another planet, and good riddance. My father was, and I suppose still is, a wonderful sketch artist. I remember seeing photos of unique and exotic faces appearing on our walls whenever the seasons were destined to change (creative way of saying every few months right?). I struggled to determine whether they were simply photographs or one of my dad's latest creations. They were usually the latter. Seeing his work never ceased to impress me, like some superpower that he possessed; one I wish I too could inherit someday. Though try as I may, I could never get behind sitting for hours attempting to draw a line or two just so.

My father criticized my relatives for their way of living, there lack of care or worry for finances or stability. I believe that was his achilles heel, the need for stability, the unwillingness to venture into the unknown and risk it all for a hope of greatness. His tone would suggest, though he'd never say it, that artists were fools. I suppose there was no hope for me to ever think otherwise. Unbeknownst to me, however, destiny has a funny way of holding on like a needy lover and waiting for the right time to tell you that it's time. For what, you may ask? to live. It wasn't until I became an adult, not the eighteen year old kind but the kind with crippling anxiety, that I had some grand awakening that art had been with me my whole life. I had never put a brush to canvas, pencil to paper, or framed a camera but I suppose my subconscious yearned for outlets.

I spent years making music, designing websites and flyers, writing content and creating marketing material for businesses. Not once did I associate any of these tasks, mostly side gigs, as art or that they would make me an artist. So when did the planets align, my mind click, or the heavens open up? When I realized, through the help of my wife, that my various career changes were a cry for help I had to come to terms with what I truly wanted. THIS might have well been the same question as asking for the crabby patty secret formula. For anyone having not grown up in a Hispanic household, dad's/husbands are first and foremost providers. Our goal is to bring in the financial stability that makes everything flow. So how was I supposed to admit to being an artist and risk that responsibility? While that story is better left for another day, it brings into question, what is an artist? An artist is any man, woman or child willing to simply say fuck it. Artists are philosophers looking to question the world around us. Artists are therapists looking to evoke a happier world through emotion. Artists are knowers of self and resilient thinkers. Artists are crazy but without the need for padded walls. My favorite quote has and always will be, creative adults are the children that never died.