Contrary to the popular saying an artist need not suffer for
their work. While in some cases an artist might benefit from
some real life experiences to draw on, or about depending on
the type of art they are
doing in a lot of cases all suffering does is take them away
from their creativity.
While for example, an author might well benefit from having some
real life experience to put into their writing because that gives
them a bit more to write about, and a bit more of a realistic idea
of what to write. However that being said that experience doesn't
necessarily have to be bad. If they have a good experience that
just adds to their life experience that can still add to them as
a writer, or as a person. Depending on what they are writing it
might not even be necessary for them to have any new experiences
before they are ready to write whatever it is they have to write.
This might be true of other art forms
as well that the experience itself might result in a better more rounded
end result when it comes time to be creative.
However all of that being said as an artist can I honestly say my
artwork has benefited from me
suffering?...not really. While I have done my share of suffering,
if anything the best of my art stems
from things that bring me joy. While I have done
pictures that are reflections of
my pain over the years and may have even published a small number of them
in the gallery pages on
espdigiart.com I generally don't by
any means consider artwork done as
a reflection of suffering to be my best artwork.
In fact if anything I have found over the years that times when I
have suffered, struggled, or had a bit more starvation have if
anything hindered me as an artist. After all it can be difficult to
create beauty when you are surrounded by and/or experiencing anything
but. At one point the creative blockage I suffered in perhaps the
most extreme form I have ever experienced stemmed partly from being
put in a situation where I suffered physically at the hands of others
every time I did something creative all for doing anything creative no
matter what it was, for reasons I am not going to get into here. Kind
of hard, and dangerous to create much of anything in that situation.
It took nothing short of a miracle, in fact several for me to get back
to doing my artwork since then.
As a friend of mine recently reminded me �Words have power.� Unfortunately
the words spoken over artists suggesting we must suffer for our work,
and a few to many references to the starving artist over the years ultimately
by that logic are curses that are long over due to be broken in the case of
any artist who's artwork does not benefit
from the suffering itself.
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