Thursday, December 07, 2006
Eulogy
I have spent a fair amount of time reflecting on the link between madness and creativity. I know this topic has been discussed ad nauseum but I want to revisit the idea however briefly.
My friend Erin, she was an artist. She was also bulimirexic and had a schizotypal personality disorder. She also believed that she could read your mind. She told me more than once that she feared me since she never could successfully read my mind, and when I jokingly made some offhand comment about the reason she could not was that I was an alien/human hybrid she literally leaped out of my car at the light and I did not see her for weeks.
She produced some astonishing work however. I do not say this from my point of view solely since I am not skilled at critiquing art. Her work was met with enthusiasm and interest by others who I believe were more "in the know" than I. I enjoyed her writing greatly, she had a turn of phrase and a unique way of looking at things that in a manner almost completely foreign to my experience, and I gained insight and appreciation for her topics in a new light. Her visual work certainly ran towards the darker hues, and with my worldview I found themes to identify with and recognize. However, she was plagued by her demons and while they made for some interesting material she suffered greatly under their sadism.
She got over my alien hybrid crack, and told me that I was reincarnated from an angel and that she could see my aura and that I was powerful and stoic being who radiated safety. I think that actually had more to do with the fact that while I fell reluctantly in love with her, I never ever consumated our relationship despite her many attempts at seduction. I knew that to sleep with her would harm her in ways that I could not fathom and so I ground my molars into dust with frustration while keeping my hands firmly wedged in my pockets.
The part that still brings sadness are my recollections of her finally crumbling under the weight of her insanity, and watching her literally starve herself to death. We lost contact after I moved far away, and I would get the occasional envelope stuffed full of her poems and pictures that grew more skeletal with time. Years later she later married and invited me to her wedding but I could not attend due to a conflict with my work schedule. I wish now that I had gone - she took her life with a razor not long after her first child was born.
Did her talent stem from her madness, or was it stifled by it? She never would have been one to paint sunlight and warmth, but I have wondered what she would have accomplished if she had managed to even reach a level of détente with her illness.
My friend Erin, she was an artist. She was also bulimirexic and had a schizotypal personality disorder. She also believed that she could read your mind. She told me more than once that she feared me since she never could successfully read my mind, and when I jokingly made some offhand comment about the reason she could not was that I was an alien/human hybrid she literally leaped out of my car at the light and I did not see her for weeks.
She produced some astonishing work however. I do not say this from my point of view solely since I am not skilled at critiquing art. Her work was met with enthusiasm and interest by others who I believe were more "in the know" than I. I enjoyed her writing greatly, she had a turn of phrase and a unique way of looking at things that in a manner almost completely foreign to my experience, and I gained insight and appreciation for her topics in a new light. Her visual work certainly ran towards the darker hues, and with my worldview I found themes to identify with and recognize. However, she was plagued by her demons and while they made for some interesting material she suffered greatly under their sadism.
She got over my alien hybrid crack, and told me that I was reincarnated from an angel and that she could see my aura and that I was powerful and stoic being who radiated safety. I think that actually had more to do with the fact that while I fell reluctantly in love with her, I never ever consumated our relationship despite her many attempts at seduction. I knew that to sleep with her would harm her in ways that I could not fathom and so I ground my molars into dust with frustration while keeping my hands firmly wedged in my pockets.
The part that still brings sadness are my recollections of her finally crumbling under the weight of her insanity, and watching her literally starve herself to death. We lost contact after I moved far away, and I would get the occasional envelope stuffed full of her poems and pictures that grew more skeletal with time. Years later she later married and invited me to her wedding but I could not attend due to a conflict with my work schedule. I wish now that I had gone - she took her life with a razor not long after her first child was born.
Did her talent stem from her madness, or was it stifled by it? She never would have been one to paint sunlight and warmth, but I have wondered what she would have accomplished if she had managed to even reach a level of détente with her illness.
# posted by Crom @ 19:07 
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Did her talent stem from her madness, or was it stifled by it?
The more I observe sick people and artists, and artists and sick people, over long periods of time, the more I see that such questions are meaningless. People come all of a piece; their gifts and their struggles are inextricable from one another, and each one is unique. What their gifts and sicknesses are, matters much less than what they choose to make of these things.
I have seen extraordinarily gifted individuals who were psychologically quite normal, and complete loony-tunes with less than no artistic talent, who kept generating substandard egoistic garbage with the frenetic compulsion of aggressive denial.
And I have seen people with no talent achieve, through discipline and willpower, a level of mediocrity which impressed me more than genius, because of the commitment it expressed.
I have seen people fetishize their illnesses, and create blocks to their creative growth by doing so.
But largely, I believe that every person's whole life is a work of art, with a meaning and a purpose which cannot be fathomed from the outside. My definition of 'success in life' is, therefore, infinitely inclusive.
And I believe your friend's life was a complete and utter success, as was your part in this extraordinary life.
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The more I observe sick people and artists, and artists and sick people, over long periods of time, the more I see that such questions are meaningless. People come all of a piece; their gifts and their struggles are inextricable from one another, and each one is unique. What their gifts and sicknesses are, matters much less than what they choose to make of these things.
I have seen extraordinarily gifted individuals who were psychologically quite normal, and complete loony-tunes with less than no artistic talent, who kept generating substandard egoistic garbage with the frenetic compulsion of aggressive denial.
And I have seen people with no talent achieve, through discipline and willpower, a level of mediocrity which impressed me more than genius, because of the commitment it expressed.
I have seen people fetishize their illnesses, and create blocks to their creative growth by doing so.
But largely, I believe that every person's whole life is a work of art, with a meaning and a purpose which cannot be fathomed from the outside. My definition of 'success in life' is, therefore, infinitely inclusive.
And I believe your friend's life was a complete and utter success, as was your part in this extraordinary life.
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