Or, Excuse Me, But Your Culture’s Choking Me

For one reason and another, dear Reader, I am thinking about the creative in our society, and the attitudes toward creative professionals. I always knew something was hinky with the way writers and artists are treated, but it wasn’t until I read Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way that I could put words to the feeling. Those of you who read me often know I refer to Cameron’s concepts often and loudly, mostly because they ring so true for me.

Before you ask, yes, I’m feeling mighty low today. Part of the tradeoff for being able to tap into reserves of creative fuel is a certain amount of…I wish we had a word for the exquisite sensitivity of the creative mind. Obsessively going over characterization and mood lends, no doubt, a certain fineness to one’s own distinctions of one’s own mental and emotional state.

I’m not strictly depressed. I know this feeling. It’s a compression, a gathering of the spring before the gestating story goes into labor contractions. (What an ungodly mixed metaphor. Forgive me.) And often the gathering stage, the compression stage, is accompanied by even more marked sleeplessness, restlessness, and moodiness. As if I wasn’t already sleepless, restless, moody enough.

But we have this set of assumptions around “the creative” in our society that make it difficult to distinguish between normal restless moodiness springing from the inner work of creation and just plain “depression.”

Here’s a list. Aren’t artists supposed to be:

* Alcoholic, or addicted to another substance
* Too “sensitive” for “real work” or adult responsibility
* Prone to suicide
* Thriving on emotional “drama”
* Less able to “cope” with “reality”
* Suffering
* Starving
* Starving and suffering in order to “prove their artistic merit”
* Unconcerned with money or business
* Unconcerned with personal hygiene

If you are snorting with laughter right now, it’s because you recognize this set of assumptions. The myth of the Starving, Suffering, Poor, Delicate, Stinking, Unable To Cope, Alcoholic Artist is alive and well. It is embedded in our culture, embedded in even the very way we talk about the creative process. Getting paid is “selling out.” Being concerned about fiscal responsibility and expecting fair value for your effort is being “mercenary.” Being emotionally and physically healthy is not an option, because of the unspoken assumption that to be a “real” artist is to “suffer” or engage in addictive, self-destructive behavior. We reserve the places of highest worship in our artistic canons for the artists whose drug habits/clinical depression/suicides took them at their “peak”–whether or not the “peak” existed, which we cannot know because the dude/dudette is DEAD.

Being DEAD means not producing any more work, you know.

The hardworking, steady, sober, financially stable artist is a “sellout.” A crazed drunken jackass who can’t button his pants in public is “sensitive” and a gifted genius.

Yes, yes. I am exaggerating to prove the point. The point still stands.

It is a constant battle against a heavy, invisible cultural weight to assert that writers, as creatives, have a right to normal human mood-swings, and a right to be sane, sober, and dependable, fully-functioning people. We have a right to get a fair day’s pay, health care, and a right to be able to support ourselves and our kids. The royalty system really isn’t set up for the convenience of the writer–do editors at big pubs get paid in lump sumps every quarter? No, they get a salary and benefits, but because “creative work” isn’t seen as “real work” (because the unspoken assumption is that it is only undertaken by the insane) the writer/painter/etc.–the person on whose production the entire industry depends–is treated as a disposable resource.

Don’t think I’m slamming publishers. Publishers are in this to make money, and it’s not their fault the broader cultural assumptions make it difficult for them to tap the resources of the creative correctly. I also have little to complain of when it comes to royalties–being published in little epubs does make for more consistent, albeit smaller checks (God bless ebooks, I say) and nobody in their right mind would ever refuse a nice fat royalty check.

I am taking issue with the deep cultural assumption that I am supposed to be on the one hand too delicate and infirm to care about money or responsibility, and that I am supposed to pay with my health and my life for being “creative”–i.e., being too delicate and infirm. Or as my stepfather repeatedly said during my childhood and teen years, “That artsy fartsy sh!t won’t put money on the table! Get your head out of the clouds! Do something real!” While at the same time telling me there were things I was unfit for–like engineering, math, or even just plain functioning–because I was too “dreamy.”

Friends and neighbors, writing IS something real. Storytelling and painting and singing and all other creative acts ARE something real. The creative impulse and the products of that impulse are as necessary as food and water, as necessary as air. Human beings create art even in the midst of desolation because we must, it’s the only way to stay sane. To allow the cultural assumption that artists are disposable and incapable of being sober or responsible is nothing less than a kick right to the balls of whatever makes our culture claim to be great. People deserve to be paid for artistic achievement without a lot of fuss and bother, and without being forced to pay in emotional coin over and over for whatever small success they achieve.

Certainly plenty of people use the myth of the Struggling, Suffering, etc. Artist to excuse behavior that would get them fired, slapped with a restraining order, or just plain cut out of their social circle. I’ve seen people use this myth to one-up fellow artists and engage in the game of “I suffer more than you, ergo my art’s better and when you succeed, you’re a f!cking sellout and I will stab you in the back” over and over again, ad nauseum, rinse and repeat. Without the myth of the irresponsible, too-delicate Artistic Flower, these people are revealed for what they are–petty high-school cliquers who never grew up. The myth feeds them and they thrive, in workshops, critique groups, you name it.

I have often thought of what one can do to work against this vast invisible hand shoving artists toward insecurity and infantile behavior. The first step must be naming it to oneself and recognizing that this set of cultural assumptions exists. The second is to take responsibility for our role in it, and to find new ways of dealing with the fact that we are creative critters in a possibly-hostile environment. The third must be to speak honestly and reasonably–not combatively and certainly not with pointing fingers and blame–about the reasons for this cultural dynamic, the behaviors it spawns, the unspoken ways we do each other harm because of it.

Which is quite enough work for a whole community. It makes me tired, I think I’m going to lie down. ([sarcasm] I’m delicate, you know. [/sarcasm])

Now I leave it to you, dear Reader. What do you think?