The Tortured Artist and Other Lies.

We all know the age old 'tortured artist' stereotype... that a creative that is suffering will be able to get in touch with their misery and turn out masterpieces of profound meaning- blah blah blah...

There is a lot to unpack here....

Sure, some level of discomfort may move someone to create something outside of their norms, it might even be great. And yes... 'discomfort' looks different for everyone... the way that day to day depression feels to me, might feel like a complete break down for someone else.

But misery... despair...

When we are so effected by events or daily life that we can not regulate ourselves we becomes unable to create, to dream, to plan, and most importantly, to execute effectively.

Art, like all effective communication, takes planning and consideration. It take practice and patience. It demands that we fail, brush ourselves off and try again- over and over. Any painting you have ever loved or that has been hung in a museum had hundred of hours developing skills, attempts, and failures poured into it before it made it to its completed form that you admire.

None of this is truly possible, for anyone, when they are miserable or tortured.

What artists need to be a success is stability. Safety. The majority of the old art masters (who were considered great in their lifetime) had patrons, they had support staff, they had wealth powering their endeavors.

Buy Art Save a Crazy Person

I have seen this on social media and chuckled, even reposted it. But what it is is a gross oversimplification of a system that does not support those who can not thrive in an economy designed around a 9-5 job (ie structure as defined by an outside party). Is that because they have mental or physical health complications? Possibly... maybe even probably. I think it might be more about the idea that we have shifted to being pushed from birth to fit into that type of society and those of us who chafe against that, regardless of mental or physical ailments, are immediately considered 'crazy'.

You tell me what is crazy... The idea that in a society art, creativity, making -any type of aesthetic or design- is valuable and improves our lives, or the idea that we need to prioritize the profit and 'well being' of an economy that praises those things on one hand while silently making the production of those things impossible and unattainable.