Painting = self-cutting, Y/Y?

[chantico]

There seems to be a theme running through almost all of the recent essays I see, on or off LJ, that tackle either writing or art: that the act of growing, learning, and expanding in either is an inherently painful experience. Lots of adjectives like "shredding", "tearing", "agonizing" and "depressing" are used to describe the experience. It seems like there's this miasma around the act of creating, as if to grow to the next stage, to get better at what we do, is an excerise akin to flaying the skin off our forearms and gleefully rubbing lemon juice in, all the while chanting "It's for the art, baby!"

Don't get me wrong . . . I do believe that the act of growing as a creator and as a crafter has rough patches, that there are pains, and that sometimes, suffering is good for us. I used to be *all* about growth through pain. But now, I question: How much of that creative pain is actually born of the process, and how much of it is self-flagellation?

I'm guilty of it. When I know I'm having a tough time of it, when I know that I need to work on my discipline or that I'm on the verge of something breaking through, my thought process is always the same-- it sounds like my muse is giving birth. "Come on! You can do better! You can BE better! Just push, push, push harder! Shove it through, rend yourself to pieces, make it WORK . . . and if you can't, well, you just weren't made to be one of the greats. It doesn't matter if it's good enough, it should be PERFECT."

Here's the catch: it never, ever works for me. Maybe it does others, but . . . any baby my muse bears under that duress turns out premature or missing its proverbial brain pan. Technically, it won't be bad, but burbling life that could be in it has been left behind somewhere in the grinder of my subconcious. I'm left exausted, self hating, and drained of any desire to continue save for one: do it again. Make it better. NOW.

How much of that could I strip away by just . . . letting go? Letting it be?

And I notice this in other creative types around me, all the time. Not everyone, but enough that it piques me. Where is that line between natural pain, and the agony and angst we project onto the process?

I think it happens for a lot of reasons. Many creative types are also "outcast" types in other ways. Some of us never really fit in; maybe that's why we still can't feel comfortable even doing something we love. Perhaps it's the cultural myth of the artist or writer as crazy, depressed, or tortured. A big part of it for me is feeling *unworthy* of what I'm creating, or that to make something magnificent, there's a price to be paid. My suffering is the blood tithe to my muse (which is inherently unfair and counter productive-- my muse is NOT a vampire, thanks, and she becomes hurt when I try to pretend she's one, and tends to go away).

Whatever the cause, the effect is the same. My breakthroughs, the pieces that really stand out, the writing that connects best with my audience, are always the ones that are created in joy and inspiration. So why do I, why do we creators, hurt ourselves so much for what we do?

Comments

[laurelwen.livejournal.com]

There's a book called Art and Fear that you should read. I got my copy at Border's in Bton and it was a quick read, but worthwhile. (Quick enough that you may not even have to buy it--hooray for using bookstores as libraries.)

[ninja-turbo.livejournal.com]

I've never been a huge 'bleed for your craft' artist, but at Clarion West, we were always being urged to push ourselves to the next level, to strive, try harder, fail bigger, because that was the point of the workshop. However, to flow into the metaphorical pattern you've identified, the phrase that most stuck in my head about that urge is in fact to "bleed all over the page."

Very recently, I followed the dao of "bleed all over the page" while revising a story and the results were very powerful. I think the advantage of incorporating that degree of pain, of emotional turmoil into the creative process is that summoning forth certain emotional states in the artist helps transmit those emotional states through the medium.

We create for many reasons, but for those who seek to effect change in others, it only makes sense that we effect change in ourselves during the process--temporary emotional shifts or longer-lasting pursuit of the ever-more-demanding craft.

However, it doesn't mean we should be self-indulgent and angsty about it, setting ourselves apart for our heroic sacrifice on behalf of the 'common people,' those unable or unwilling to make the shamanic journey/sacrifice of the Artist. Because that's bunk, and I don't mean a cantrip.

[tooth-and-claw.livejournal.com]

But I think there's a huge difference between putting emotion into what you're doing-- which can include pain, often with powerful results-- and equating the *process itself* with being innately painful. Bleeding all over the page, as you say, can be incredibly healing and cathartic. Even making yourself feel something for the sake of your story is part and parcel of the process for some people. But the difference lies in where it becomes pathological, where every time you attend to that page or canvas, the pain comes; when it has nothing to do with what your working on, and everything with how you approach that work.

It's like gaming-- I can pull up tears and true emotional responses to events in character, but when those translate into serious OOC issues or problems with the act of gaming itself, that's unhealthy.

You do bring up and interesting point, though: the artist clinging to pain as a badge of honor-- and I think Amber's right in her response below that this isn't something just limited to the arts. "I've suffered more than you, so I'm better/more pure/have more experience" is a HUGE part of our society.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Yeah . . . all these posts with their metaphors of violence just leave me cold. The things I have the most fun creating are not necessarily good, and the ones that hurt are not necessarily bad. But I just don't feel any answering resonance from the notion that I should be tearing my skin off and leaving my intestines all over the page for the reader. The closest I come is when I feel the pain I'm inflicting on my characters, when I ache in sympathy for them. Beyond that, though . . . I don't think I think that way.

[squishymeister.livejournal.com]

and then there's those of us who have sold our souls to the system and spend all of our time jumping through hoops and writing dry medical reports only to have them too shredded apart for the hope of one day moving past the process and the rules and actually making a difference.

Seems that this sort of thing is universal...

(I have it on my to do list to call you today, if I don't then you can feel free to fire me)

[ozziel.livejournal.com]

I'd probably say that most artists are drama queens. =P

[deadmanwade.livejournal.com]

Kinda like how most game store employees are mid-twenties, single, never graduated from college slackers? ;)

[ozziel.livejournal.com]

who says I'm single?

[crossp.livejournal.com]

I find it more wobbly, scary, and lonely than painful.

[crossp.livejournal.com]

To explain that. I mean that often, when I hit a sort of next step, I feel that I can't step back. That I am never allowed to do worse than this theoretical artistic breakthrough, and it's like starting over, and I start wondering whether I'll be good enough to stay this high.