‘Millennials need mental-health care, but struggle to access it’ .......Philadelphia Inquirer, 1-16
The article begins, ‘When Aishia Correll struggled with her mental health a few years ago, she thought she had nowhere to turn. So, she began painting and that became her therapy.’
The rest of the article is about the need for mental-health providers to take insurance, such as that, and doesn’t mention painting as an alternative to psycho-therapy again. I’ve heard that Sigmund Freud once remarked that ‘artists are people involved in self-therapy,’ and he didn’t seem to mind the competition, although some artist could have made that up. So you’ve been thinking all this while the sole ambition of the artist was to beguile and please you, and the only motive was to separate you from your cash. Actually the quest of the artist really has very little to do with you, and it certainly isn’t about money.
Making art that’s only about seduction turns out to be a very lucrative trade, and brings big bucks indeed, but that sort of talent gravitates toward advertising, high-tech production. Fact is creatives with deadlines wouldn’t bother with brushes and canvas, or all that time alone. In contrast, there are folks right around you who put in forty a week at a job they only tolerate, and then attempt to paint on weekends and instead of watching TV in the evening, and they’re not struggling with it to become rich and famous. Would they like to earn a living that way, every single one, but most would acknowledge it’s as unattainable as walking to the moon. What are they trying to prove?
Someone in your family, down the block, in all directions has made the attempt, has purchased supplies and set up a little workspace. Trade places with them for a moment, and stare at a blank white surface. This is the same blank surface that DaVinci confronted centuries ago, as has every artist since, good or bad, and it’s an awesome place. You can find yourself in there, but at the same time, since everyone else will be able to see you too, it can be scary. The first thing you’ll discover is that making marks on a page that will remind anyone else of a farm animal doesn’t come easy, and when someone guesses cow instead of horse, you’ll feel a small ripple of personal satisfaction, if a cow was what you were going for.
No one can teach you how to do it. Each mark requires an intention and presence that simply can’t be achieved in fluctuating emotional states, floating on delusion or obsessing over trifles. Painting imposes certain conditions, requires its own disciplines, and to a large extent, that’s the therapeutic part, but once mastery on even a rudimentary level is achieved, something else takes over. The artist becomes revealed in the canvas. It’s a mirror not concerned with the face that grows old and changes, but with sobriety and character, vision and belief, a bottomless well as deep or as shallow as the artist and viewer care to go. So remember, as a last resort art can be your mental-health provider when clinics are full and not taking more patients.
The article begins, ‘When Aishia Correll struggled with her mental health a few years ago, she thought she had nowhere to turn. So, she began painting and that became her therapy.’
The rest of the article is about the need for mental-health providers to take insurance, such as that, and doesn’t mention painting as an alternative to psycho-therapy again. I’ve heard that Sigmund Freud once remarked that ‘artists are people involved in self-therapy,’ and he didn’t seem to mind the competition, although some artist could have made that up. So you’ve been thinking all this while the sole ambition of the artist was to beguile and please you, and the only motive was to separate you from your cash. Actually the quest of the artist really has very little to do with you, and it certainly isn’t about money.
Making art that’s only about seduction turns out to be a very lucrative trade, and brings big bucks indeed, but that sort of talent gravitates toward advertising, high-tech production. Fact is creatives with deadlines wouldn’t bother with brushes and canvas, or all that time alone. In contrast, there are folks right around you who put in forty a week at a job they only tolerate, and then attempt to paint on weekends and instead of watching TV in the evening, and they’re not struggling with it to become rich and famous. Would they like to earn a living that way, every single one, but most would acknowledge it’s as unattainable as walking to the moon. What are they trying to prove?
Someone in your family, down the block, in all directions has made the attempt, has purchased supplies and set up a little workspace. Trade places with them for a moment, and stare at a blank white surface. This is the same blank surface that DaVinci confronted centuries ago, as has every artist since, good or bad, and it’s an awesome place. You can find yourself in there, but at the same time, since everyone else will be able to see you too, it can be scary. The first thing you’ll discover is that making marks on a page that will remind anyone else of a farm animal doesn’t come easy, and when someone guesses cow instead of horse, you’ll feel a small ripple of personal satisfaction, if a cow was what you were going for.
No one can teach you how to do it. Each mark requires an intention and presence that simply can’t be achieved in fluctuating emotional states, floating on delusion or obsessing over trifles. Painting imposes certain conditions, requires its own disciplines, and to a large extent, that’s the therapeutic part, but once mastery on even a rudimentary level is achieved, something else takes over. The artist becomes revealed in the canvas. It’s a mirror not concerned with the face that grows old and changes, but with sobriety and character, vision and belief, a bottomless well as deep or as shallow as the artist and viewer care to go. So remember, as a last resort art can be your mental-health provider when clinics are full and not taking more patients.
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