I don’t count anymore how many times I’ve had the pleasure of being part of a conversation about how we artists have a get-out-of-jail card when it comes to fitting in with the social norms of behaviour. Be it drinking, smoking or taking drugs, misbehaviour or just wearing fancy colourful hats – whatever you do as an artist, well, it’s OK, because you’re just expressing your creativity or boosting it, or maybe just squandering it.

With skating, you have people who buy the appropriate Etnies shoes and a nice Burton skateboard and  just hang out at the skatepark not really doing anything with their equipment rather then just latching on to what the skating subgenre’s ideology has to offer (and that’s fine, we all want to belong to a crowd we can relate to) and the same is with art. Some see the image of an artist  – paint allover her shirt, brushes in her hair in a small room filled with canvases – and see freedom itself.

Or maybe you’re like me, and just never really knew what interested you the most, because everything seemed so damn interesting that you just wanted to learn all about it. And while I am not searching for the right answer to the question, why one would become an artist, I do feel that there is a common ground that we all thread upon. Ones searching for a place in a society so full of wonderful things, that it’s almost impossible to decide where to stop and absolutely unthinkable to actually grow roots at, and others, who grew roots in places that would not allow them to express themselves, and are now searching for other ways to project their inner most feelings or creative ambitions.

And many more, who see cracks in society and feel empathy for the pain that such discrepancies can cause. But there are those who think they see salvation in the arts when in reality they only find a way to escape responsibility, an excuse to not grow up and never really leave Neverland. And so they wander, protected by their furry animal pelts, and create but never really know what for. And many don’t just stop at art, and overindulge in other substances of escape, all with the indirect effect of making people, who wish to pursue the arts as a profession, look like the stereotypes that we are all accustomed to. But maybe there is room for change. Maybe the age old image of the crazy artist is just that, an old relic that could be left behind, giving room to more professionalism in our beloved craft, while still keeping our funky hats and quirkiness and the freedom that it comes with them intact.