Do I want to write today?…
Madness sits uncomfortably on my shoulder, urging me to pour my heart and frustrations out in search of consolation and sympathy… yet my life is good and I have nothing to complain about!!!
The artist completely took over half term two weeks ago, and art once again took me to the edge of distraction. I HATE Art at times…
Do you get that? Have you felt that?..
You embark on a rich vein of research… you know you are making good progress… the work is flowing, coherent, supported with well-documented evidence… image after image moves the work forward and you intuitively know your progress is good… you feel enlightened…
There’s a word… Enlightened!
You don’t want to do anything else… your concentration and focus clash as those around you try and engage your attention… late nights… early starts… that sickness of creativity…
Then the crash… the doubts… the misgivings… the pressures…
What if I’ve got all this wrong?.. The work is crap… unconnected… the research faulty… those in the know will shoot you down… laugh at you… pull you apart… ridicule…
You check… double check… go over… revisit… and whilst you’re recasting progress halts… unfounded uncertainty annihilates that feeling of earlier euphoria…
So you stop… everything stops… shut down…
It’s that painful reactivation… that necessity to breathe… function… that slowly lifts you from the dense murkiness… days have passed… tolerant loved ones have bemusedly soothed, tolerated… and you awaken from the daze to try and rationally correlate your thoughts… re-adjust and re-engage with your responsibilities…
The work now sits… neatly stacked and bundled… filed and indexed… waiting patiently… baiting you enticingly… summoning you like sirens away from your duties…
I have to work… teacher is required… bills need paying… family needs caring… pupils require instruction… friends awaiting responses…
Yet… I want to submerge and bathe in the mania again…
Why?
Art is my drug… my fix… my get me up… my pick me up… it lifts me… motivates… inspires and animates me. Privileged; it is my luxury that I occupy daily…
Obsessional… addict… addiction… there’s the myth, isn’t there? The myth of the artist… tormented soul… I get that. Perhaps that’s why I need to teach? Balance? 24/7 Art would surely lead me to the mad house…
So why not others? How do you address the balance?
We see it so often; fallen stars. Van Gogh, Pollock, Modigliani… the list is endless, yet in modern times, not such an occurrence. I pray I’m not tempting fate, but I would ask; how do you stay sane?
The teacher tells me to finish “writing up” my previous two blogs. “Let the world know about your final thoughts on your iPad training day”. But the moment has past. The momentum gone… Art took over and muddled the memory… obliterated…
Is Art a drug? Certainly a form of escapism for me. Why do we make it? Why do you make it? Does it fulfill a craving, a need? Do you get a rush when you’re on it? When did you first feel that? When did I first feel it?
I work in series… short attention span… three to four paintings and then move on. The iPad has changed that a bit as I can rapidly produce hundreds of images… yet I still produce series… swop… change…
I always sell the first one for a million… (in my head)… that allows me to produce more… sets me up… literally and metaphorically… fuels the fire of the fantasy… I’ve made it before I even start work on the second… name up in lights… glory… recognition… fame… destruction…
Should I be allowed to teach? Fantasist!
Teaching is my sedative… surrounded still by Art, yet restrained… having to focus away from the ego… sickness restrained… young minds constantly questioning sidetrack my malady… restore my reason… rationality…
… for now…
