So, three artist'es'sess walk into a bar. . . .

So this fascinating artist* took us out to dinner last night. I'm still trying to remember the high-lights of our great conversation:

Art is best when you introduce nothing new, but rather find a way to percieve familiar things in a new way.

Being an artist is like being a sick person, creativity is a malady. It's something you have to deal with.

Being in the middle of "work" is not like meditation or hypnosis or anything else that sounds romantic, it is most like sleeping. That said, working on art is as close to doing nothing with yourself as you can get.

He told of the different facets of himself as seen by others: The family who sees him as a wandering playboy, care-free, untethered by work or bosses or a proper job. His colleauges who see him as a madman, insane with work ethic, hunched over his drawing table for 14 hours (!) a day while his assistant fetches food and coffee.

I really wanted to take a serious tone, look him in the eye, and ask, "But Marco, is fourteen hours gonna be enough?".


*Supposedly, in Uruguay (which is located between Argentina and Brasil, for those of you who are as geographically ignorant as I was before I looked it up) the word Artiste is reserved as a description of an individual who enjoys life but cannot be trusted to accomplish anything worthwhile.