Pain and Art
“The best way out is always through.” - Robert Frost
Pain and art. A legendary combination. Emotional pain has fueled the creation of great art since…well…forever, right?
Is pain necessary to create great art? Of course not.
But when pain DOES come…when you feel it…when you experience sadness, anger or loneliness, as a creative person you have an incredible opportunity. You can turn that pain into art.
This is a gift.
I know I’m not revealing a big secret here. It’s just a reminder.
Amazing love songs are written by miserable, broken-hearted people.
The world’s greatest novels are often filled with tragedy.
Express your pain through your art, through your medium, whatever that is.
Pick up that guitar and play what you feel…
Open your laptop and write exactly what’s on your mind without censoring yourself…
BE sad. BE angry. Don’t resist it.
But don’t just sit there…
Use it.
Channel that pain into your art.
Because “the best way out is always through”.
Because when you write that sad song, or paint that angry painting, something really cool happens:
You end up feeling a hell of a lot better!
Do you use your pain to create? Leave a comment!
Some of my best writing bled out through my wounds and pain. It is more passionate and real. To go back and read it takes me back and reminds me how far I’ve come. Somethings you don’t want to relive but to read the writing or study the art from that kind of time can make you appreciate where you are now.
Not during, no. After I have come through it, then I use my experience and remembrances to create. Lord, during I am lucky to get up off the couch! *chuckle*
I think the last twenty years of my life have been a struggle for me to see how much pain I can actually endure in an office job to get me to realize I need to do my artwork again to find peace. With each passing year, the hurdle gets higher and higher and I don’t seem to be able to get where I want to go. I have had minor triumphs when I am bursting to get something artistic out of me: I write poems, I make presents, etc. etc. but nothing real to add to a body of work. It upsets me. I do not know how to tear this wall down as I cannot stand my real job any longer.
Laurie - I know exactly what you mean. Thanks…
Urban - I totally hear you. But it is interesting what can happen when you create during the actual pain part. Give it a shot next time!
Ann - Writing poems and giving presents sound real enough to me. But if it’s a body of work you want it can certainly happen. Just sounds like a discipline issue.
If you made one painting every month for a year that’s 12 paintings. In five years that’s 60 paintings. In 10 years that’s 120 paintings. That’s a body of work.
Have you read my interview with Duane Keiser of A Painting a Day? (in the Interview catagory). Also, have you read “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield? Both should help inspire you. You are definitely not alone - you speak for a LOT of people. Hang in there!
I work in pain in a few ways. I very carefully document and journal all of it. Sometimes this is later used in a bonfire, other times it is kept in a shoe box in my closet. This journaling is a way for me to get a point of view on hurt so big and depp that it completely consumes me other wise.
and then… I go 5 minutes and am okay, and go 1 hour and am okay, when I get to the 1 day and okay mark… that is a place where I can completely focus that energy into a painting that is really intense, and usually pretty amazing. I think when I am able to survive 1 day, I must have devloped some sort of perspective, some perameters around why am I reacting like this, and it is okay, I’m allowed.
Every once in a while, I draw from those experiences through the lens of today, and create a more laid back piece of work- in the process, I call it. The pallettes change a lot, more colors, less monotone, tighter classical theory. Those pieces are calmer and more balanced. At that point, it gets interesting to read back through the journals, sometimes choosing a few pages to burn at that time, and once- a few pages that needed to be mailed.
I love how Ann makes gifts! I’m usually hoarding all this stuff, let me tell ya, it takes up a lot of space!
The gifts come out of a real desire to share and also complete confidence that I know what I am doing. I think my art frightens me because I get so caught up in it nothing else matters. Well, thanks for the words of encouragement all. Sometimes it takes 20 years to get re-inspired.
Mark, when my father died four years ago, I came to believe that with his parting he left me a very large gift; and that is, pain. He left me with this terrible pain, which somehow eventually transformed into something positive, something creative, which propelled me out of a severe writer’s block and allowed me clarity when it came to my work (among other things)! Pain is, indeed, a difficult but sometimes necessary way for us to move forward in our lives.
(And, by the way, I’ve awarded you with something. Go check it out :)!
Hi there,
Well, I must say I paint when I feel like it. Sometimes I feel joy and happiness and sometimes I am sad or angry. But usually, when I am sad and angry, I need something more to get rid of tension and I usually go running. And I do the painting afterwards
Not that my paintings are any good mind you. Maybe I should start painting when I am in a negative mood. Get the running on canvas… :-))
Mimi