Subverting the Troubled Artist

To inch back from burnout to consistently creating is one of the slowest things that has ever happened in my life. Slower because I'm impatient and a perfectionist and also frozen solid much of the time. For a long time, I exhausted and stressed myself out to the point of physical illness. Now that I have a little freedom to know myself, to create, to breathe, I'm finding that direct mind body connection is essential to making anything.

There is this exhausted troupe of the troubled artist, and yes, I am what many people would consider "troubled", but I do not create when I am down there. I do not create when I am overwhelmed and overstimulated, I create when my body and mind are in sync and I am not in any sort of crisis. The world can be cruel, it can also be beautiful and exquisite, I find I can express that in art when I'm in a good spot.

The times where I create are the times when mentally I am thriving, where I have plenty of room both physically and mentally. Writing prose comes to me in waves, writing poetry tends to flood my brain until I get it out on paper. Painting involves the energy to both take out the paints and then to clean them up, which is frankly a lot, but my painting tends to come to me like poetry while my photography tends to come to me like prose. The times where I have been able to create good or great art were when my needs were being met.

I am sure, and history shows us that there are many artists that create at their darkest, and I am so grateful for them, because they motivate me enough to keep up the bare minimum. While it takes a lot of mental energy to make something it also feeds your soul in a different way than anything else.

Society expects artists to suffer, that's why there's a trope. Unfortunately I've never met a creative person who doesn't have some shit in their past. Sure the challenges I've met in my life have made me a better artist. Could I have still become a good artist minus the suffering? Almost definitely.

I'm not talking about subtracting neurodivergence and mental illness, for that is the reality for me and millions of other people. I'm talking about the structures that exist to support artists are weak at best crumbling at worst.

The work I like the most is the work that is informed by my past, but made after some processing and adjusting on my part. When my head is clear and I'm not sitting in sadness it's so much easier to make. Perspective from the other side of the experience.

I'm making work and that is what matters. The troubled artist troupe may come from the fact that few creatives live a life of glamor, it could be that depth of experience causes artists to be more attuned to other people's energy. What works for me may not work for others, but I find that creating is so much easier when our needs are being met.

I've peppered some of my work in here, photographs, paintings, drawings. Things I've made at different stages in my life, informed by different events in life, both traumatic and joyous.

Maybe collectively we should decide that we should be making things with a wild abandon and full of as much joy as possible. The world is scary and unpredictable, art though, art has a power of connection that is difficult to define, and storytellers of all kinds are the keepers of that connection.

May you make something today.