All In the Family

August 13, 2025

Being an artist full time isn’t about sitting in a studio painting for hours on end or chiseling away at some elusive masterpiece from dawn till dusk, it’s not just creating at every possible moment. It’s also about learning how to see. Not just with your eyes, but with the kind of perception that allows you to catch the subtle shift of light on a wall at 3 PM, or the quiet poetry in a crowded café. It’s noticing the way someone laughs from the belly or how the wind picks up a piece of paper and dances it across the sidewalk. These small, everyday moments become the seeds of inspiration, even if they don’t sprout right away. And that’s the thing, nothing is ever wasted.

Being a full-time artist is often misunderstood as constant output, as though the worth of the work is measured solely by its volume. But in truth, it’s as much input as it is output. It’s filling the mental storehouse with everything you possibly can: books you didn’t plan to read, films you didn’t expect to love, music from genres you thought didn’t speak to you. It’s stepping into a museum of ancient history and somehow walking out with an idea for a modern installation. It’s reading a sci-fi novel and having a breakthrough about color theory. It’s watching a kid build something with LEGOs and realizing how little constraints actually matter. The mind makes connections quietly, mysteriously, and often long after the moment has passed. But the more you give it, the more it gives back.

And beyond the arts, there’s a whole world of joy and curiosity that doesn’t fit neatly into the “creative” label, but which feeds the artist's soul just the same. A morning walk. Cooking for friends. Learning how to fix a motorcycle. Gardening. Talking to strangers. Traveling. Sitting still. Playing music. These moments matter. They are not distractions or detours from the work, they are the work. They are the nutrients for the creative soil. They are what make the art personal, grounded, alive. Every experience, every joy, every heartbreak even, becomes part of the invisible scaffolding that holds up the visible creation.

In the end, it’s all in the family. Every act of living, every curiosity followed, every stumble, every surprise, it all belongs. There’s no wasted effort. Even the things that seem far removed from your discipline, writing a letter, watching birds, studying architecture when you’re a dancer, or listening to jazz when you’re a ceramicist, those things find their way in. They transform you in small ways, and in doing so, transform the work you make. Art doesn't live in a vacuum. It lives in the artist, and the artist lives in the world. Everything you do, everything you feel, everything you notice, it all becomes part of the process. And that process? That’s the art too.