On how pain shapes an artist.

I have two friends who are women, and artists, and who live with pretty serious bipolar disorders. We often talk together about how similar their illness and my illness are.

When we are sick, it feels as though we are staving off depression with one hand, wielding a sword which is overly large and quickly grows too heavy. Our work stops, because what we were working at had a joy in it we can no longer access. Or it begins again, filled with sorrow and melancholy and creeping along in progress at a glacial pace because our health allows us to work in only the smallest of bursts.

When we are well, the repressed tidal wave of creative energy that is unloosed threatens to drown us in its enthusiasm and power. For my friends, the mania of the bipolar highs can be quite disturbing, even frightening. I have a similar experience when the pain finally abates–for a day or for a season–and all the pent up creativity comes spilling out in a rush of ideas and inspirations. It’s not frightening, but it is overpowering. When a particularly bad streak of migraines passes, I am overly energetic, ridiculously optimistic. I buy supplies for projects I shouldn’t start because I got sick mid-process on the last round of ideas and haven’t yet finished those. I lose sleep, pacing the house at night awake with ideas – and consequently worrying that the lack of sleep will in turn trigger more migraines. I flit from project to project without finishing much.

Up until recently I’ve tried to tame that feast-or-famine cycle, especially the rush of creative ideas. I’ve tried to be a disciplined person, to put my nose to the grind stone, and finish what I’ve started. But now, I’m wondering, maybe I should just embrace the flibbertigibbet that emerges when the pain subsides. Maybe I should allow myself to get distracted by sparkly things. Maybe there’s fruit there. Maybe there’s finishing, or finishing enough for today. Maybe the artist that is being carved out by my pain doesn’t have to be so focused, so well honed. Maybe she can have her fingers in a half-a-dozen pies and still be real, be serious, be authentically an artist. Maybe she can sell vintage clothes because they are one of a kind, beautiful and made by hand, not in sweatshops. Maybe she can string prayer beads and write new rites. Maybe she can try her hand at writing a book, and learn to put together presentation packages with her agent. Maybe she can collage notebooks and make shrines and knit up cute and fuzzy bunnies. Maybe she can. Maybe she can.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 3rd, 2007 at 12:35 pm and is filed under Magpie Girl, Rachelle Mee-Chapman.
Tags: chronic pain, migraines



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