Day Twenty-Three: I Really Don't Get Artists.

Before I went to college, I contemplated being an artist. I would sit for hours capturing people and animals in graphite, or creating weird, colorful paintings with acrylics. But, my logical side won out and I went to school for writing instead, realizing that I would probably end up hating anything artistic from being forced to create everyday until I was utterly exhausted. And, more importantly, that I would probably have a difficult time eating and would live in my parents house until I was forty. But when I arrived, I discovered another reason I am glad I didn't try to surround my life with art.

I really don't understand artists.

Some artists are just normal (somewhat normal, anyway) people, like me, who just enjoy creating art and playing with color. Other people, the kind of people I was surrounded by in school, are artists. These are the people who wear tophats as a part of their regular everyday wardrobe, and chainsmoke in front of maple trees while their friend named Calliope sits painting her feet for fun. While these people are undoubtedly on some other plane of existence, and their brain functions on a completely different level as the rest of us, I have a difficult time taking them seriously. In fact, I'm pretty sure anyone except people not unlike themselves can take them seriously. As I walked by on my way to my web design class, I would shake my head and wrack my brain trying to understand how these people think from the moment they get up in the morning. What must it be like to be that...weird?

The thing that fascinates me most about artsy artists are that most of them act as free as they look. They really don't care much about anything but love, art, and thinking. Either that, or they're completely conflicted, angry, and tortured. But what must it be like to create that openly and think that freely and just be consumed by making things all day? I might like to be an artist for a day, but certainly not more than that. I'm pretty sure I'd go legitimately crazy.