If you weren’t ever lucky enough to be friends with an artist during your lifetime, then you missed out on a special breed of friendship. I was blessed enough to grow up with one, and from the time we were fourth graders to today as we follow our own individual paths she has both shocked and inspired me with her unique personality and spirit. My relationship with my artsy best friend has been one of the more interesting and special aspects of my life. If you have a special artsy friend in your life, then you might recognize some of these basic patterns in your friendship.

1. Her outfits outshine yours 100 percent of the time.

It doesn’t matter where we go, my friend always wins the outfit game. This is first of all largely because for her, T-shirt and yoga pants days just do not exist ever. Art doesn’t just lie on paper for her, it transfers to her person and how she presents herself. Standing out is a must, and creativity literally flows off of her. My perfectly put together boutique outfit never seems to amount to much next to whatever new garb my friend comes up with.

2. She always gives the most incredible gifts.

There’s just nothing like do it yourselfs, and when they are actually museum worthy it is a huge plus. My artsy friend has always been able to put her heart and soul into creating something beautiful—and I have benefited by it with countless pictures, gizmos and even a homemade sweatshirt that I wear at least four times a weeks.

3. She teaches you to dream.

My friend has always had the most enormous dreams for herself. Traveling the world, her art in museums, changing the universe—she aims high. She was my only friend to go out of state for school, for a highly esteemed art school, actually. Her talent for dreaming has taken her to incredible places and will certainly continue to do so. Even when we were children, her dreams inspired me to dream larger for myself—even convincing me for a while that fairies truly existed. Today, she is a witness to me that with hard work, big goals can be possible.

4. Making plans with her is never simple.

Artsy people are talented—but they are often a mess. From their room to their life. They thrive in chaos. My friend is notoriously late and forever unorganized. She is nearly impossible to make a solid plan with, and if you leave her to make the plans, it is not unlikely that they will be totally unrealistic.

5. Her interests range from the strange to the straight up random.

Artsy people find more time in the day than normal ones, and in that time, they find some way to develop deep interests in the most random things. For example, my best friend’s interest include: medieval knights and princesses, K-Pop (Korean Pop—yeah I didn’t know what that was either, and yes, it is entirely in Korean), bagpipes, calligraphy, anime and dragons. I have learned about all sorts of new things in this world because of my friendship with this girl, and though I may never understand it all, I am forever indebted to her for educating me.

This friendship is one that has made an invaluable mark upon my life, and I would never trade it for the world. My artsy friend has made my life incredibly weirder and also incredibly more beautiful. She has inspired me and educated me and complimented aspects of my life in the most unique ways, and I hope that at some point everyone gets to experience friendship with an artsy person.