Patti Friday is a cultural arts blogger based in Toronto, Canada
Q: Tell us your definition of an ‘Artist’?
A: Anyone who chooses to see life with eyes and ears open, open to surprises, open to new ideas, willing to hear all sides of an issue, willing to think outside the box for solutions to everyday issues be they aesthetic, musical, business, or diplomacy, etc - and not desirous of simply following status quo for profit or to be liked or accepted…
Q: When did you know you were one?
A: I am still wondering… I guess I go back to an old quote I heard the artist Wayne Thibaud use – “please don’t call me an artist, for that is like calling a priest a saint”. I am just an everyday painter trying to search for unique ways of seeing the world…and for me, ultimately an attempt to search for beauty, even sometimes through the grotesque or the morbid, can be a route to an underlying beauty, for it may arouse thoughts or actions in a viewer to see the world in another way so as to ignite thought or action aiming towards a greater harmony or vibration to share with the world…