Depression and Creation: The dance of intentional destruction and self worth

For some its a matter of managing addiction, for some its about channeling the self loathing, but in the end its really about sweeping the fear under the rug. I am talking about self destructive behaviors. Choose your poison.

The internal dialog goes something like this:
 "Will I make a thing?  How will I look making the thing? what if its crap? what if I am not suddenly famous and able to earn a living because of the thing? or worse! what if I am? what if people want to talk to me and get personal with their ideas about what my thing means? what if its boring? What if they are boring? what if I am really boring?
or worse yet, what if I make a thing and no one even notices and nothing even changes, and my life still sucks and I am no closer to paying my rent or getting out of debt or gaining any respect?"
... it goes on and on and its a lot easier to over indulge in booze, drugs, sex, work, anything but actually attempting to make a thing. Any thing.

But the need to be creative leaks out around the corners of our lives;  Arranging the paper clips on our desks, or how we hang  or even pile the clothes in our closet....

I've been making food. Food feels safe. Most people like it, some one is likely to notice. And if its horrid you just make something else the next day.  Any mistakes are forgotten quickly in the aromas and sensory input of the latest work. Its easy to be dedicated and disciplined because hunger is a powerful driving force demanding regular production, preparation and completion of each project.

I can console my small, shattered, depressed self, with feelings of superiority because in many ways food is the truest embodiment of what ART is. It is a careful process and presentation that creates an immediate emotional experience. An experience that is gone, over and removed to the realm of memory as soon as it has been completely experienced. That is the epitome of true Art.

For many, a painting or a sculpture is real art because it endures the passage of time, and can be experienced again and again. But if ART is the process of creation, then the painting, photograph or sculpture is merely the product, the tangible memory or window into the energetic state of that process.

Many times I have busted my ass to build a body of work for a show, or an assignment, or just a time line for portfolio photography, only to destroy the products to the ultimate dismay of my teachers and classmates. Yet I was able to understand something they could not grasp: The destruction of the product was in itself an expression, an act of ART as much as its creation. Nature destroys in order to create. It destroys in order to free the energy and release it from its locked, committed, static form so it can flow, inspire and cycle back into being in a new form. The molecules of genius.

As I struggle through this latest bout of depression and sense of existing in a world that does not see or value ME or my skills, or my ideas, as I look for a job (any job) to support myself, I am inundated with messages to "Follow your Bliss".  So I have recently quit looking for work, after an entire YEAR in two states, of unsuccessful and un-insightful interviews, and resume black holes that have just eaten my resumes. It just doesn't seem to make a difference that I have tried so very hard for this log. It has just stripped me of my self confidence, while spinning my wheels and wearing me out.

For the first time in over 2 years, I want to create ART.

In order to do this I must create a safe space to ALLOW creativity to unfold, physically, mentally, emotionally. A space where I am not on a time clock or playing defense to justify my "screwing around" and "giving up supporting myself", and just "expecting the system to take care of me".  I have to create a space that these voices (and their various owners, my own included), and the ego cannot penetrate. I have to create this safe space, round up supplies, commit to daily studio time in a disciplined and consistent act, and suspend judgement of myself and any fledgling creations that sprout or don't within that sacred place.

1, 2, 3...

I give up

So here I am, sitting in my new living room, starting another new phase in my life. The past 7 years has been all about major transition. I moved 14 times just to give you an idea of what I mean. But somehow in the midst of all those moves -three of which involved changing states- I went pretty numb artistically. Oh, I had a few islands of creative out pouring, but they felt more like trying to come up with something, than to get something down before it flew away!  Seriously, -the best art is more like catching something passing by, passing through one, than actually Creating it from nothing with a capital C, like an ego driven extrovert with a God complex. Its more about being humble and serving the muse, at 3 in the morning, or instead of ones "day job" if that is what she demands.

 I did manage to accomplish a lot of things in the eyes of the world, though the last 3 years have seemed pretty hollow. I finally got my bachelors degree, ended two unhealthy and stagnating friendships, and a marriage, lost two beloved animal companions, unexpectedly got one back two years later, started a new relationship with a longtime crush, healed old, broken down methods of familial non-communication, amassed student loans enough to fund the moon launch in the sixties, and both walked away from and rediscovered the joy of creativity and making art about 6 times, before calling it quits altogether.

 Let us just say that there was heart ache, despair, depression, and a complete and utter lack of HOPE, vision, opportunity or direction. There was ineffectual medical advice, more debt, at least 3 bogus employers, two good ones, a few amazingly supportive friends, and an "Art Class" that lassoed and regulated my creative voice to such an extent that I was left so empty, disillusioned and used up, that for the entire next year life was with out hope, or meaning, or purpose. I really just wanted to just die, and swore off art, artsy-ness, and creativity for good.... and yet here I am two years later and all that inner artist crap is leaking out around the edges again.

I SHOULD have my nose to the grind stone. Again. still. forever. some more. I should be getting another "Real Job" since the call center thing crashed and burned when I walked out in the middle of my shift last month. I didn't even stand up on the desk and sing Lion King at the top of my lungs first -or anything else I had planned for my supreme exit. I just cleaned out my desk, and my gym  locker, wrote a letter to my supervisor about why they could all shove it, and quietly went home without ceremony. What a sad, unfortunate Walter Mitty Moment.

Since I've been home again, in a home I like for the first time in over 3 years, I have been cooking a lot, wild, delicious concoctions designed to stretch my dollar, - did you know they frown on giving you food stamps if you quit a job? Understandable I guess, to many free loaders, but I WANT to work! I don't want to be an artist. I don't want to stay home bored and alone all day, and have to be creative about how to make ends meet. I don't want to be self disciplined and try to create pop culture arty-ness in a rental unit where I have to worry about the carpet. ITS JUST NOT PRACTICAL...

But here I am, my head near to busting with ideas and opinions about everything this week, for the first time in over 2 years. Everywhere I look, every conversation, every groceries list, or mundane facebook post  has elements of artist inspiration woven through it. Its all to much to even try to catalog, it is a heady, manic, euphoric feeling after years of striving in the artistic desert of despair. I can't seem to capture it all in a sentence, but I want to get some of it down before the muse forsakes me again. Try as I might to conform, and be Normal, and fit it, and pay my bills, and go to the gym, it seems I am destined to be a loud, non conforming artist with wacky ideas, living from a soft heart moment by moment, for better or worse. I give up. Do you hear me universe!?

Fine. I will write something. OK. Fine, I will cook a new dish. OK, fine. I will get the paints out. Fine. Whatever. I will open the project file of the old ideas I never had time to get to...