Art conquers morbidities

by Jim Young

Whether or not I fall into morbidity's - caused by major depression - my artwork and writing remains a testimony to a "saneness" still rooted within me. This is because to be an artist is to observe the environment and oneself in relation to it. This, doing art and writing serves as an anchor to the hopes and fears of us all, individually and collectively. It prevents us from being self-absorbed

It is an error to assume that artists are self-absorbed. To be self-absorbed is to be in contradiction to the creative spirit. The creative spirit demands to be built from and related to the human experience. My art and writing is the very thing that keeps me relatively stable. It allows me the opportunity to become em pathetic, shocked, saddened, joyful, hopeful angry and amused. The canvas and writing pad become the best therapists I could possible have! They let me dump my stuff all over them! Self-absorption or being self centered anchors us only to our own selves. It is the way we build walls around ourselves, constructing a fortress. And that fortress can easily become a prison. It makes only for a siege mentality. For those of us battling depression, that leads to the road to hospitalization.

The key that unlocks the door to my recovery is participation in human relations. Since social phobia prevents me from having a lot of friends, my art and writing forces me to participate fully in the realms of society, culture, nature and their human denizens. The act of observing is the act of participating. The beauty of doing art and writing is that, during their execution loneliness is crushed. Even if you are alone you not lonely.

I can say that if I had not had the drive to do art and write throughout my life, a life marked by periods of long aloneness, I may have well ended up dead through suicide or severely psychotic.

Before ending I would like to clarify a myth about artists known nowadays to have been 'mentally ill'. It is postulated that Vincent van Gogh would not have produced his great works of art had he not suffered from his mental illness. That by itself is debatable. Perhaps van Gogh's experiences has to be seen the opposite way. Perhaps without his art, without his 'canvas therapist' he may have wandered the streets babbling to himself, or he would have shot himself a lot sooner than he did. Art kept him saner, as it does me.