From the years 1987-2000 (or today) I wanted to be a rock star. One part musician and 99 parts adored by people. The second part is why it never really planned out. Turns out you have to be really good at the music part of the equation. Not beating myself up. It’s a hard business and competitive af. Throw in the fact that I was 16 or so when I decided this and you can see how this may not have been the best life path. 

But while the bands I played in weren’t the next U2 or REM, it didn’t stop me from approaching the world from a creative mindset. Bizarre as it may sound I look at the things I do and create as “more than” and I think that’s what makes them appealing and sometimes confusing. Can a salad restaurant be “art”?  Is a race a “performance”.  I guess it just depends on how you want to look at it. 

I’ve never been much for traditional labels. I’ll never call myself a chef or restauranteur or even an entrepreneur. Inside my head I just don’t think it applies. This is both a blessing and a curse as I think sometimes I try and work through things my way, ignoring the ways that others have already found to be more efficient. It’s equal parts punk ethos and ignorance/stubbornness. So does this make FRESHJUNKIE art?

I keep asking you that because I don’t have an answer. I think yes. The “more than” that I regard my endeavors with can be considered “art”. Self serving?  Maybe so. but the attention to building a brand and sweating the names of menu items is no different from placing a brushstroke here or a refrain in a song there. It’s a lens and it matters. 

Digging deeper is coaching art?  Again I’d say yes. I’m not the world’s best workout writer nor am I slave to the science of fitness. I am good at getting people to be their best, to realize they have more inside them than they realize and to achieve things they didn’t know were possible. That’s an art. 

What’s funny as I read back on this is that I am applying the same parameters to call what I do art as people do when applying titles to what it is I do. The same titles I despise. I don’t consider myself an artist anymore than an entrepreneur. Confused yet?

What it all boils down to eventually is that I think I want you to know that what we (I) pour our souls into, the things that we do, whether we can quantify it or not, is a melting of emotion down into a tangible “thing”, THAT IS the “more than”. It’s that indescribable something that moves us. That makes us want to be apart of something greater. It’s a small detail that sticks out and makes people attracted to something in a way that they can’t explain. 

And that. Is art. 

#hugsandhi5s