To be an artist, you don't have to compose music or paint or be

Hear the words of Viggo Mortensen, wanderer, poet, and warrior of the screen, who declared: “To be an artist, you don’t have to compose music or paint or be in the movies or write books. It’s just a way of living. It has to do with paying attention, remembering, filtering what you see and answering back, participating in life.” In these words he frees art from its cages of profession and craft, declaring it instead to be a sacred way of being. Art is not only on the canvas or in the song, but in the way we behold the world and respond to it.

When Mortensen speaks of paying attention, he reveals the first discipline of the artist: to see what others ignore. To notice the subtle shift of light in a room, the sorrow hidden in a stranger’s eyes, the way leaves whisper secrets when the wind bends them. These are not merely observations; they are doorways. The artist, whether or not he holds brush or pen, enters through them and finds meaning in the ordinary. Thus, to live as an artist is to cultivate the gaze that sees not only the surface of things, but their spirit.

The next step he names is remembering. For the world offers its truths, but they slip away like water unless the soul carries them. To remember is to treasure moments, to hold them until they can be woven into wisdom. And then comes filtering—the act of shaping those memories, weighing their meaning, and deciding what to release back into the world. In this process lies the very essence of creation: the dialogue between life and the self, between what is received and what is given.

The origin of such words lies in Mortensen’s own life. Known as an actor, he has also painted, written poetry, and composed music, but above all, he has lived as one who sees. His art is not confined to roles or mediums, but is present in the way he approaches the world—with curiosity, humility, and reverence. His statement is a rebuke to those who think only the famous or the technically skilled are artists. He insists instead that the true calling of the artist belongs to all who live with awareness and courage.

History gives us countless examples of this truth. Consider Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome, who wrote meditations not as literature but as reflections on life. He was not a poet by trade, yet his writings endure as works of art because he paid attention, remembered, and answered back with honesty. Or consider the haiku masters of Japan, who captured the cry of a bird or the silence of snow in three lines. Their genius was not in grand performances, but in living attentively and responding faithfully to what life presented.

The deeper meaning is this: art is not separate from life. It is not locked in galleries or performed only on great stages. To live artistically is to resist numbness, to remain awake to beauty and pain, to participate fully rather than drifting through days in forgetfulness. Every human being is called to this way of living—not to produce masterpieces for the world, but to create meaning in their own existence, to answer back to life with dignity and imagination.

Beloved listener, take this teaching into your heart. Do not think you must be a painter or musician to live as an artist. Begin with your attention: notice the small details of your day. Hold them in memory, reflect upon them, and let them shape your response. Speak more thoughtfully, walk more reverently, give more deliberately. In this way, your life itself will become a work of art, one that will touch others not with fame but with presence.

Thus the wisdom of Viggo Mortensen endures: that to be an artist is not to wield brush or pen, but to live awake, to pay attention, to remember, and to participate in life with courage. Let each of us, then, embrace this calling—not as profession, but as practice, not as vanity, but as reverence. For when life is lived as art, every step becomes sacred, and every breath becomes creation.