Passages: Toward Order (2023)- Coming to the Gmeiner Arts & Cultural Center
It is the stretched soul that makes music, and souls are stretched by the pull of opposites-opposite bents, tastes, yearnings, loyalties. Where there is no polarity-where energies flow smoothly in one direction-there will be much doing but no music.
–Eric Hoffer, Between the Devil and the Dragon
This painting from a few years back, Passages: Toward Order, is included in my showcase at the Gmeiner Arts & Cultural Center as part of the upcoming Big Gems exhibit, in collaboration with the West End Gallery. This piece has always held a particular fascination for me so choosing it for this show was an easy decision. When I went back a few years and reread the original post about it, I was surprised what I had written. A subject I seldom speak on, though I often hint at, was broached. Here’s what that post said, with a few minor edits:
Seeing an assembled group of my paintings reminds me of how someone could use an artist’s work as a roadmap or schematic of their mind and thought process, even though the artist, being human, might want to disguise and mask it.
It can uncover things that the artist doesn’t even know they are revealing at first. A body of work can often show many, maybe eve all, of the facets contained in the artist’s personality prism. Flaws and strengths. Loves and desires, worries and fears. Highs and lows.
Art does that. And like the self-taught philosopher Eric Hoffer points out above, the music that makes up all art often comes when the artist is stretched and in tension between these polar oppositions.
That makes sense to me. The life of an artist is a very bipolar one, at least in my experience over the past quarter century. You’re always bouncing between polar opposites, all the time trying to find some sort of balance.
For instance, there is the desire to be isolated in privacy, yet one’s livelihood is dependent on sharing your work– and by extension, yourself– in a very public way. And artists are often very sensitive to the criticism and judgement of others yet work in a field that is almost solely based on the judgement from others. This, of course, leads to cycles of acceptance and rejection. Overoptimism and excessive pessimism. Periods of highs where the artist overestimates their abilities and value followed by lows where they berate themselves, questioning why they even try. Periods when your work is in sync with the times and highly sought– the flavor of the month– followed by times when you are a bit overlooked and out of favor, seemingly irrelevant.
Then there is the most obvious comparison to bipolarism, the exuberance of those highly productive, manic periods of creativity followed by the times when the artist experiences creative blocks, leaving them feeling uninspired and in despair.
For some, it’s too much of a burden. Too much of a stress being stretched between those polar opposites. I understand why someone would question whether to become an artist, thereby putting themselves through that kind of tension and perpetual imbalance. It is certainly not for everybody.
For me, it a way of living that makes sense since it mirrors what I would be going through in any other field in which I might be employed. In art, those tendencies that make life difficult when following a normal path have a place and even a purpose– if you can come to see and accept it in that way.
And I guess it’s evident at this point that I have. Maybe you can see it in my work as whole. Maybe not. The control in creating the work versus the lack of control in how it is received is yet another part of the bipolarism of the artist.
I don’t think I had read this post since it was written. The fact that I shared so much surprised me even though I am probably exceedingly transparent here. But like many people, I was not eager to reveal my own struggles with mental illness. I hesitated a long time before I could write that last sentence. Mental illness carries so much baggage and remains a stigma. I wasn’t sure I wanted to openly enter the conversation. Continuing to wear a mask is so much easier.
But over the years I have begun to feel that hiding my own problems behind a mask was a grave disservice to those who struggle with similar issues. Maybe sharing it should be part of my duty as both an artist and a human. I have learned how to cope with my own issues and perhaps seeing that will help someone in a dark place find some hope that they can find their way out.
Those dark places are lonely, after all.
The hard part in dealing with mental illness is that when you are in those dark places, you become very protective of that place. You feel that it is yours alone and because you have made it such, nobody can share or understand it. Well-meaning words and advice often push you even further into the darkness that is your place.
So, I have no words or advice that will lead anyone out of darkness. My path out was, like that dark place, mine alone. But I will say to those trapped in darkness now that though you might not yet see it, there is a way out. That path is there for many of you.
Really wasn’t planning on this for today’s post. I am almost regretting it already. Taking down one’s mask is sometimes a scary proposition. But something in this painting, the path to the Red Tree in the light after going the darker woods, speaks metaphorically to my time in the darkness and rereading that earlier post just triggered something.
I’m going to stop now. I’ve said enough and maybe too much. There’s a lot to say so I may revisit it again someday soon.
Or not. I don’t know.
I was pretty comfortable in that mask though I imagine many folks could see through it.
Here’s a wonderful instrumental cover of the R&B classic Dark End of the Street from Ry Cooder. His guitar speaks with real deep feeling here. Doesn’t need words.