An Artist with Depression

[transformed]

I am an artist. I see the world in paintings, pictures and sculptures. It just overflows inside me to be surrounded by art.

So latley I have been trying to get back to that, because I left the world of both making and appreciating art when I had my kids 4 years ago. (Due to financial stuff too! Art costs money...it can be cheap but not really free!) But I suffer from pretty severe depression (bi-polar like) at times and I can hardly change a diaper, let alone feed my art addiction.

I am taking a pottery class right now and it really lifts my spirit just to work with clay again. Can I cure depression with art?

What do you think? Does depression, or just eccentricity, come with the territory? Or-how do you get up and paint, when you really just want to sleep all day?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

[melissa17s]

Many artists through out history have dealt with various degrees of depression. Van Gogh, Gaugin, Diane Arbus, Pollock, Munch, and so on. Even so, art is about expressing an idea through a visual format, so it is what ever you want to make of it- good or bad. It can be ritual magic, sharing a story, propoganda, functional for daily life, or attactive to look at- it is up to the artist first, and then later the interruptation of the viewer.

[LakiniCoyote]

I know I have an extensive history of mental illness. I am not sure if it comes with the territory but if you look at all the greats- it really DOES seem to, doesn't it?
My problem is not depression- though when that does hit, it's nearly debilitating and I try to just curl up in the bedroom with my son and a pitcher and some snacks. We kind of take a (or a couple) mommy and me mini vacation from the outside world, etc, etc. That actually helps alot.
But yeah, I have a hard time working when depressed. When I am closed for commissions, generally, that's why. (Sometimes though, I just got ALOT on my plate. lol)
I find its when I am having the issues with paranoia that I do some of my greatest original work. Not portraits, just very dark, scary drawings and sketches. Always VERY detailed, too.

[Gwennie]

I think, maybe it comes from the fact that great art stems from great emotion-sometimes great inner turmoil. A fantastic piece can come as easily from intense, deep dark depression as it can from extraordinary joy. It's just the fundamental of what art *is* so yeah, I guess those who are artistic kind of are prone to the higher emotions, the higher highs and the lower lows? I know when I'm at my most creative I'm jumping from emotion to emotion, feeling things really intensely. All of the greats had terrible emotional problems and even psychosis....either naturally or from drugs and alcohol ;P

[Lilacmoon]

Intense emotions seem to be the fuel for expression, either in visual arts or the written word. Think of all of the great poets and writers that suffered from depression. Its the thorn on the rose, the gift of heightned perception and intuity.. the stuff that makes an artist great, also exposes them to sensory and thus emotional overload..

[yabba kina]

I can relate.

My psychologist once told me that some of the greatest artists loose their need to paint when they resolve their underlying unhappiness. I think that's an overgeneralisation, but as an artist and writer, both flow best when the world's axis has the colly wobbles in my head.

it's then time to go walkabout. :