Case-Notes from the Artsy Asylum

Is Depression Inevitable for Artists and Creatives?

The information I came up with about depression, although helpful for those who want to have a better idea what it looks like - and holding some hints towards identifying the illness - still leaves me wondering if creative people are just plain destined to experience it come hell or high water. 

Arnold Ludwig wondered the same thing. Lucky for us, he didn't get distracted from Psychology and swept up in clay (you can probably guess who did that).

As a result he's now a professor, and a researcher at the University of Kentucky Medical Center.

Also an MD - so he's just the guy to find out more about this.

And he did! In fact, it was a study of 1004 men and women over the span of 10-years. His group was made up of a wide variety of accomplished people in just as wide a variety of professions, including art, music, science, business, politics, and sports.

In the end, he found:

• between 59 and 77 percent of the artists, writers, and musicians suffered mental illness  especially "mood disorders"
• compared to just 18 to 29 percent in the less artistic professionals

Time for me to say "Bingo" again.

And other studies have shown higher rates of depression in creative people too, the differences in various studies only being in the percentage gaps.

How depressing. So could we look on the bright side and connect the two saying that having a mental illness make people more creative?

Our Doctor Ludwig thinks not - or not exactly -  in The Price of Greatness: Resolving the Creativity and Madness Controversy saying

"Mental illness is not the price people pay for their creative gifts... creative people who are mentally ill find themselves, almost by default, in the arts rather than in business or the other sciences."

Ah - so we're in creative fields because people will put up with our foibles because we are artists? I obviously need to read more before I accept that on the face of it

Kay Redfield Jamison, professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, addresses these questions in her book, Touched with Fire, as well. And there's plenty more where those came from. So there seems to be a lot more reading in my future

If you want to dip your toe into the wealth of information out there in the brain-pool you might want to

• Download this pdf article from Science news about CreativeMelancholy

or to look at:

• Arnold M. Ludwig: The Price of Greatness: Resolving the Creativity and Madness Controversy

• Kay Redfield Jamison: Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament

• C. Diane Ealy: Woman's Book of Creativity
• Daniel Nettle: Strong Imagination

• Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance

• National Foundation for Depressive Illness

• Artists and Depression Forum

Making Connections 24-7 - Pay It Forward

I don't think I'm aware of a time in my life during which I wasn't excited about one thing or another. I like ideas. Maybe I even love ideas. It's like people saying that they're bored and I'm thinking: what's up with that?

I've been excited about a wide variety of things that have kind of rolled on, one tumbling into another, overlapping all through my life. And right now this blog thing is taking center stage because I'm really seeing the advantage to me as an artist.

Like holding a 24-7 open studio and not having to serve wine and cheese or clean up after it.  

So there's the blog thing and the new series of artistamps for spring thing and the featured artist in one website or publication or another thing and - well I just love all of them.

In fact, there are so many ideas - and some of you know this about me - swirling around in my head I know that I'll never get to all of them in one lifetime. In fact I'm thinking more and more that the  ADHD -  Entrepreneur link that Dave Taylor & Pete Quily talked about is pretty much spot on for a lot of artists too.

And I think that Jim Stroud, who I met through the LinkedIn Bloggers group might be a little like me - but not so scattered I hope.

He's talking about an idea for ways to promote the work of fellow bloggers. And that's the beauty of much of the Bloggosphere. It's populated with people who are not only see the potential of promoting others but they are generous by way of a kind of philosophy that doing good is its own reward.

So as part of a kind of an abundance mentality, Jim's current idea is something he's calling "a LinkedIn Blogger Boost."

I know that it will work too. And one of the big reasons that it will work is because it's essentially word of mouth advertising. And you can't buy that.

His proposal is to chose a blog (or two) from the group and on a certain day, we all mention that blog on our respective blogs and link to them.

Why? Well this is the way blogs make the climb up the search engine ladder and create that all important bloggosphere word; the magic of  buzz.

Jim says

". . we could also mention our Linked In Bloggers Group and why we are doing it - to promote the members of our group. (I believe in full disclosure.) This would attract potential members which would pitch in on writing up other blogs we decide to promote in the future. Which means, everytime we do the "LinkedIn Blogger Boost" it becomes more powerful. (At least in theory...)

And I think it WILL be so in fact. After all -

• My best resources for new collectors have been current collectors.
• The people who refer the most new artistamp users to me are current stamp users.
• The people who've brought me more students have been current students

I think that the way more people will learn about us is through our blogs, And the way people will learn about our blogs is not by someone looking for it or for us paying to advertise it. I think it will be through someone who already knows about it.

And that someone may be you. Have you told someone about some of your favorite blogs lately? Make a list of two or five or seven or whatever you want and send it to your friends. Post it on your blog. Pass it on to your favorite Yahoo group.

You know, it just can't hurt to pay it forward. Or maybe in this case blog it forward.

You can find Jim at http://blogcharm.com/jimstroud
and the LinkedIn Bloggers here LinkedinBloggers

     

Mardi Gras Artistamp Download Here

Mardi Gras season is again upon us and brings with it the chance to create another fancy, dramatic artistamp.

Just so we're not accused of only having fun around the asylum, Secretary General of the Ephemerian Department of Education, Bingolia division, Susan Wood wants to make certain that everyone is informed that:

• Mardi Gras season begins on January 6 and continues until Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday

• Mardi gras actually is a French term  that translates to means "Fat Tuesday."

Fat or not, It can occur anytime between February 3 and March 9.

The date depends on the Lunar calendar not the Gregorian calendar that is used nearly everywhere in the world.  

And likewise it's the Lunar calendar which determines the date of Easter. Mardi Gras is always 47 days before Easter Sunday.

Got that? Great, then you're eligible to download and use the 2006 issue of the Mardi Gras Artistamp.

Download it; Save it Print it; and use enthusiastically and with lots of sparkly stuff.
Download 2006.2.09_mardigras-combo.pdf

Are we havin' fun yet? Super!

As you were - and keep on carrying on.

The Olympics: Cirque de Torino - With Voiceover

Am I the only one or is the olympics - not the events, not the athletes - but the "THING" that is the organization & ceremonies etc just getting more and more weird, and over-produced?

Hints to the Canada, host country for the Winter Games 2010:

• Just bring on the little girl (dressed like a little girl, please) and let her sing your national anthem with patriotic reverence and skip the superbowl-like embellishments.

• No Jessica Simpson-esque jaw contortions.

• No attitude.

• No wardrobe malfunctions.

• No voiceover saying ''the performers come together to form a beating heart, the obvious universal symbol of passion." Who writes this stuff? Just shut up and let me watch and draw my own conclusions, OK?

Leave the interpretive dancers that look like farm animals in the barn

Background choral music, overload of informative, overproduced, over-musically backed, overwritten and over voice-overed - Just say NO!

I like Botticelli. I think that ''The Birth of Venus" is a lovely painting. Reencating it is over the top.

And please, if I have to listen to Jim Lampley or Bob Costas deliver scripted - but laughable - lines in a deadpan manner one more time I'm going to be forced to throw the TV out the window.

If you can't just let me watch the sports could you just substitute a spot where Canadian skater Jamie Sale pops around to more restaurants to learn how to cook local dishes? She was adorable learning to make gnocci in Turin.

Hey - I'm an artist - I get "evocative" - but accompanying ceremonies with a giant anvil is W - E - I - R - D  . . . even for the olympics.

Likewise, the gymnast in a welder's mask at the opening ceremony was creepy no matter what it was supposed to be symbolic of.

I've got a good idea, though. If you could make all events as fun as short track ice relay, which is like a combination speedway racing and roller-derby on steroids - oh, and on ice - do it

I think we'd all be happier.

For some real fun, you can Watch the womens short track demolition derby-like finals replayed here  Or  If readers haven't seen a number of the events call up rewind videos here to relive the glory. Just skip the opening ceremonies and avoid the pain.

Don Knotts Commemorative Artistamp

It's with a sense of gratitude for laughter over five decades that the Empire of Ephemeria's Bureau Postess announces the release of the Don Knotts commemorative artistamp sheet.

This issue is a gift to the residents of the Empire and friends around the galaxy and can be downloaded free through the link below.

The sheet is in pdf file format and two variations are provided. One is a stamp-edge imprinted stamp which gives the appearance of perforations along each edge. The other is a straight edge version which can be cut with Stamp Edge Scissors for an authentic looking edge.

If using this to adorn snail mail, don't forget to add regular postage to the envelope unless you're mailing it from within the Empire of Ephemeria and the annexed state of Bingolia.

As always, and most of all, Enjoy. Barney Fyfe would want to see you smile.

Download 2006.02.008_donknotts.pdf

The Music and Art of Collection

I'm forever obsessing and second guessing myself during the process of putting together an exhibit and I was reminded of this when I was talking about Ann Hills' CD: Don't Panic  (if anyone finds someone out there who sounds more like a young, clear voiced Judy Collins I'd like to hear about it)

In any case it's this CD that is so lovely on many levels that made me wonder how artists select which songs make the cut for inclusion and which get passed by.

Ann Includes for example so many tracks during which my inclination is to lean back in a porch chair and watch dragonflies in the garden. For example "Two of a Kind" which is simply so engaging.

On the other hand she includes another that just makes me hit "forward."

The whole "which get in and which lose out" process must be a little like visual artists putting paintings together for a show.

We want them to hang together to show a cohesiveness in our body of work, while at the same time we push our comfort level and explore areas that we're not so sure of.

It's like a sweet agony of deciding between children to include in an outing where they'll all reflect for better or worse on us.

Are we willing to show off the new one with the smooshed up old man face and head still misshapen from the birth process?
Are we still as accepting of the teen with pierced eyebrow?

Sure! We love them all and wish everyone could see them the way we do.

As artists we want to stretch. And maybe that's what leads us sometimes to pull an artistic muscle in including a project that's not quite the equal of the rest.

Everyone should be allowed one not quite so wonderful outcome every so often. But for the most part when it comes to this CD, it is stunningly lovely.

One of these days I'll share one of my playlists. In the meantime these are the philosophical music and art ponderings sifting through the artsy asylum. You in turn might be left wondering "what was she thinking?" at the choices of images I show in the Gallery.

 

NOLA & 9/11 - Artists Emergency Kits

Along with reading the outstanding book Getting Things Done recommended by Alison Stanfield, I'm also digging into the fascinating Al Qaeda Connection: International Terrorism & Organized Crime.  Going into this I wasn't sure if it would be seriously disturbing or more illuminating. Now I'd say it's a good dose of both.

Of course this reminds me of my experience on September 11, 2001 and the aftermath when I was so artistically immobilized - but honestly any day in which the skies of northern Virginia are clear and blue the smell and sight of a burning Pentagon pops up unbidden from the newsreel of my memory.

I'm not so sure everyone else in the neighborhood feels the same. I think that the artists' senses do us injustice in times like this.

New Orleans artists must have gone through a different kind of psychic trauma And this leads me to wonder if artists, poets, musicians and other creative sorts should prepare with emergency kits much different than things than those that are thought of more than essential survival gear.   

So as my life has come to one of those moments of synchronicity and I'm in "Be Prepared" mode my big question is how does an artist prepare - and by that I mean how may an artist's preparations be different from how a mom, or a lawyer, or a bank teller prepares?

To prepare for a tornado, hurricane, flood or worse I've stashed:

• trash bags,
• baby wipes,
• water,
• preserved food,
• battery powered lantern,
• a radio
• and extra batteries in my waterproof container.

And I suppose nearly everyone in Washington has a "grab and go" bag with pocket knife, needle and thread, shampoo, underwear, socks & extra prescription meds.

But I can't help wondering if poets and musicians and artists need intangible things more than essential survival gear.

I'm not suggesting stocking tubes of paint in place of water, but I am wondering if I would cease to feel and react like an artist if I became an evacuee.

If I were sitting in a Red Cross shelter in West Virginia somewhere what would I want with me to soothe the muse?

Laptops may not make it on the list of "essentials," but surely a digital camera plus some colored pens and pencils with a small sketchbook could make the cut. And, in theory at least, I'd gladly substitute a digital music player for an extra pair of socks.

That's in theory though; and may be just nuts. I could be just as stunned as I was after the pentagon attack and incapable of having a creative thought. I didn't need art supplies then. The only word I have to describe the feeling is "frozen."

Wondering what other people could add to the discussion I Googled "creative people" and "emergency" and I found a fascinating paper on creativity in people involved  with emergency response. The Arts in a Time of Crisis was a very interesting read as well, but not what I was looking for.

As far as the more common emergency needs go, the links and websites listed below can give us food for thought. But for the creative soul they offer little input.

And it occurs to me that it's a subject that deserves consideration.

As a writer or artist, a poet or musician - what would you find helpful if you were plucked away from home without warning?

Additional Resources:

• Wikipedia: Self Rescue

• Emergency Supplies Checklist

• Earthquake Comfort Kit

• Red Cross: Build a Kit / Checklist

 

Saying Goodbye to Time Wasters

Nick Wilson has a great suggestion dealing with time usage on the  Performancing.com blog, pointing out that

"Its one thing to be efficient, and dilligent in your productivity efforts, but when you start adding other people to the equation you can quickly get bogged down in . . . unproductive tasks, conversations and meetings."

I know that this happens with me and my art life, not to mention my personal life. Any helpful suggestions for dealing with distractions and time-wasters in my studio / office is welcome, so I read more with interest.

It turns out that Nick's idea developed in a conversation he had with Merlin Mann from 43Folders. Even before the conversation actually began Merlin asked if Nick would like to:

" bullet point what we needed to get done in our discussion, and . if 15mins would be sufficient. . .As a result of sticking to a time frame, and having a defined structure to the call, we got what we needed to do done in time"

Great idea; and one that sounds to me as if it would be applicable to many of our lives - and doable as well. What it would require would be a bit of self discipline and a willingness to be proactive.

The discipline could have wonderful potential though and may pay off in a real profit from this approach.  In fact Nick says that

"The act of deciding what had to be accomplished . .(and). .  agreeing how long it would take made for a very productive meeting, and I learnt a lot about getting other people to be productive when it would affect me in the process."

Taking that lesson back to my life, if I'd just jot down a bullet point list of what I want to accomplish in the next bit of time I have, and decide on a time limit that I agree to stick to might just be the first step.

In that vein, in the [non] billable hour blog self described life-long idea collector Matt Homann tells about an exercise done by Mark at Manager Tools with his clients.

Quoting Matt quoting Mark

"  . the disparity between what they (clients) know their jobs to be and what they spend their time doing is the primary source of their dissatisfaction in their role."

Bingo. We need to make this kind of agreement with people we're working or interacting with and also make the same kind of agreement with ourselves regarding what we're going to accomplish.

A habit takes 21 days to establish - supposedly. I'm going to give it my best shot.

Connections in Blogging - Participants Welcome

Darren Rouse who blogs professionally - meaning he works at it full time and makes his income from his blogs - has suggested in ProBlogger Blog that opening up our blogs to content written by other people is a  good idea .

Darren says.

"I’ve often asked other people to write an article, review, reflection or rant for me on a topic that they have a passion or interest in. . . .  I try to make it worth the writer’s while by giving a link back to their site or by promoting them and encouraging them."

I laughed out loud at the "rant" part - I'm just not sure I could rant on request - but I'm in agreement abut the concept.

On the other hand I've heard from others that it seems to them that sharing your bought and paid for soapbox / bully pulpit / forum freely like this is just plain dumb. To many others the generosity of spirit makes perfect sense.

Denise Wakeman, part of the Blog Squad duo, contends that beyond providing trackbacking and commenting opportunities, inviting guest bloggers is an excellent way to effectively build alliances. In fact, there's lots of buzz on the topic including Denise's piece on her widely read Build A Better Blog.

But your guest bloggers are not only providing information for blog readers, Denise says that

"More than likely, they'll be telling their readers they are blogging on your blog. That starts to build some traffic back and forth."

Don't miss the importance of this. Connectivity is at the heart of what Blogging is all about.

The connections can pay off for reader, writer, and host blog; and Chris Garrett says in the Performancing Blog,

"I really got my first big breaks by writing for an already successful publication on a not very lucrative contract.

 

So he brought information to his guest-gig; information encourages readership; and the content he wrote brought Chris success in a big break that grew out of the experience.

The Artsy Asylum Blog has already featured articles by four artists / guest bloggers and more are planned.

Some commercial out there said: "Participants Welcome". I concur whole-heartedly.

 

A Freebie on Opening Doors Online

Just in case I missed passing this on here - I know I told Museum of Paper Art readers but if you don't read that I don't want you to miss out -

Authors Keith Ferazzi, author of Never Eat Alone : And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time and David Teten who wrote The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors And Closing Deals Online know their subject matter well enough to point out the obvious value of relationships and offer insights how to make the best use of our opportunities

I've found an honest-to-goodness free download of David's book, the Virtual Handshake as well.

I'm not certain how long it will be available but for now you can click on over to this site and download the book in digital format.