Artists who are miserable create more profound work.
I believe this myth is untrue and destructive. Making art is work. It is a job. And humans work best in the long-term when they are rested, fed, loved and exercised. (I make us sound like pets. In these ways we are the same.)
And just like engineers, housekeepers and schoolteachers, or anyone else with a job, we can output great work under pressure and in bad circumstances, but this is not BECAUSE of the bad circumstances or pressure. And it cannot be maintained indefinitely.
However, as is true for all living beings, trauma and sorrow WILL touch artists’ lives. How does an artist’s creativity react to sorrow and trauma?
In the last two years my life has been darkened by two murders, the war in Ukraine, a loved one having a stroke and a loved one struggling with dependencies. Mourning for climate change. Israel and Gaza. I am responding in two ways.
One way is by creating still lifes about the sorrow, which I try to make beautiful in a somber way. The other is through hand-pulled prints, where I feel able to speak a little more literally. I am inspired in these prints by Barry Moser by the Kathe Kollwitz (see below).
Because I cannot predict what images will be consoling to others, I try to make images that are meaningful to me.
Kathe Kollowitz / “Widow” / woodcut / 1921
Here’s a recent print of mine called “Invasion,” about a young woman who is having a normal day, refreshing her manicure after a bath. Instead of nice day outside her window, tanks are rolling in. Her life is going to change radically. To me the real vulnerability is in her being unclothed, and that she hasn’t noticed the tanks. Or she feels like she can change nothing. The dog seems to have an accurate grasp of their situation.
I understand that darker images are harder to live with, but for me, making them is important.
Hefferlin / “Invasion” / 27 x 27 inches / hand-pulled linocut print 2020