what makes an artist?

Now there's a loaded question (worth years of pondering...) I've been on a Hitchcock binge of late. Alfred Hitchcock was an incredibly prolific director, just in case you didn't know. (and as i was watching Suspicion my mom came to visit and, distractable as she is, got involved with it for about twenty minutes when i mentioned it was a Hitchcock film she suddenly had to flee my house because she's so afraid of his films--even though she'd been watching it for twenty minutes with no incident--now most of Hitch's films were more suspense than horror but don't try to tell her that) anyway, when i was in college i did a research paper on Hitchcock's work for one of my film history classes and read a couple of biographies of him and didn't find much exciting about his life (at least he was someone i didn't think i would want to spend much time with--even as a fly on the wall), tho i love his films--and i have found that to be a rather common theme in many of the artist's lives i most admire (Margaret Atwood and Nabokov are the first to spring to mind).

I used to have a theory that you had to be a little "off" in one way or another (be it depressed crazy whatever you want to call it) to be a great/good artist because you would have to have a slightly different perspective on the world to be able to see it in a new, unique, exciting, artistic (or whatever you want to call it) way. And although there are quite a few artists who have led rather intriguing lives there are quite a few others were i'm just not feeling it (do they just save it all for their work or keep it well hidden?)

Thoughts to ponder for the night/day.