Spinning pain into gold
Channelling your suffering into art without bleeding all over the page
When I was in my early teens, there was a sitcom on TV in which one of the characters was a stereotypical starving artist. Incredibly talented, but downtrodden, a little hapless and also a little too in love with the idea of himself as a pure - and therefore impoverished - artist, a lot of the show’s punchlines involved him being thwarted in his attempts at success by cruel twists of fate and a certain dose of his own hubris. Every time I think about the relationship of suffering to creativity and the archetype of the starving artist, a scene plays in my head of this character walking away from yet another career catastrophe muttering to himself, “Pain is good for art, pain is good for art, pain is good for art.”
This is a mantra that I think a lot of us carry, lodged deep in our subconscious. We’ve internalised these sorts of archetypes - the starving artist, the suffering artist - and we think that the role of the artist is to act as a kind of emotional Rumplestiltskin, spinning the coarse and brittle straw of our pain into gold. This is sort of true, and also completely not true.
One of the wonderful things about a creative practice is that it allows you to process, understand and release suffering. Our art gives us a vehicle to confront our pain, integrate the experience, and move forward. By looking those dark and uncomfortable moments in the eye and telling the unflinching truth about them, we create art that speaks to others, that illuminates the reality of being human, and that helps our audience, by enabling them to relate to it and connect with it, to process, understand and integrate their own feelings. It’s a powerful tool, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that this role of art is vital to our individual lives and to our collective societies.
But. We don’t need to bleed all over the page on a daily basis to call ourselves artists. We don’t need to continually mine the depths of our darkest places, to keep poking ourselves to find fresh wounds, just to make art. Sometimes, staring straight into the face of our trauma can actually be detrimental to our wellbeing, particularly if we are immersing ourselves in it for prolonged periods of time. And some things are best simply left behind. Only you can know what experiences and memories would benefit from exploration and expression, what sores will fester and leak poison into your blood stream until you treat them, and which cuts are best left to heal on their own. My personal method for determining which painful topics to give creative attention to is to address the things that feel lodged somewhere in my body and that won’t shift unless I deal with them somehow. The wrongs that run round and round in my brain, the aches that keep sneaking up on me out of nowhere. If a ghost from my past won’t leave of its own accord, then it needs to be exorcised. And there are also issues that I want to address - experiences that I think need to be talked about, that need to be brought out of the shadows. People that I want to let know they are not alone.
Confronting pain and trauma through art needs to be done with care, and vigilant regard for your own wellbeing. Take regular breaks, and step away for as long as you feel you need if it seems to be getting too much. Pace yourself - don’t feel you have to do too much too soon or in one go. Build in plenty of activities to soothe and nourish your body and mind in between your creative sessions. Find a trusted person or support group with whom to talk through any feelings that come up. Don’t get too attached to the outcome - the process is what matters here, so don’t put pressure on yourself to create a great work of art. If it turns into something that you want to share and that helps others, then that’s wonderful. But the most important aim of this work is to help you, so that should always be the priority.
The archetype of the suffering artist is not one that we should get too attached to, though. This concept didn’t develop by accident - it has been created by a capitalist, patriarchal and colonialist system that would very much like to limit the number of people who tell stories, who talk about the reality of their experience. The powers that be want to control the societal narrative so that the rest of us don’t think too deeply about the way the world works, so that we don’t ask too many questions. It suits them if we don’t understand each other, if we can’t see one another’s points of view - if we’re busy fighting each other, we’re too busy to stand up to them. So they want to put us off engaging with the arts, they want us to feel afraid of exploring and sharing our stories.
There is plenty of joy and wonder to be found in our creative practices, too. We also benefit from exploring stories of love and happiness and beauty. The world could certainly do with more joy in it right now. Although there is something to be said for the need for contrast in our creative works - light shines brighter in the context of darkness. To show what joy really means, sometimes we have to look at sadness and suffering. But you don’t need to suffer constantly for your art. Pain can be used and transformed through art, but it isn’t a necessary fuel, it’s not always good for art - being in pain (mental, emotional, spiritual, physical) can hold us back from creating, and it can limit what we feel capable of achieving. Ultimately, all human emotions and experiences are good for art - the role of the artist is to observe, explore and express them all.
As I recall, the artist in that TV show made it in the end. He married a very rich woman who bankrolled his way into the art world, before he left her to run off with the heroine of the show who he’d been in love with all along (I’m not saying it was a particularly aspirational or non-problematic story, but sometimes the wheel of fate drops us at the top of the mountain rather than the bottom of the valley). He continued to make art even when he’d been removed from his modern-day garret and taken off the breadline. Suffering isn’t a prerequisite for art, but art can be a tonic for suffering. And if you do want to use creativity as a tool for processing and expressing your pain, here are five exercises you can try.
Below you will find the following:
Visualise the wall
Free writing / scribbling
Burst the balloon
Lesson generator
Memory bag
Creative exercises
A word of warning first: please do bear in mind everything I said above about approaching this work with care. Look after your wellbeing above all else. Take breaks as often as you need to - actually, take them more often than you think you need to. Do things that fill your cup back up after you’ve been exploring difficult feelings and experiences. Talk to someone about how you’re feeling. Reach out for professional help when you need to - just as you see a doctor when you feel physically unwell, we all need to get better at looking for therapy and support for our mental and emotional health. If something feels too much, then stop. Listen to your gut about how much is right for you.
Visualise the wall
Sometimes jumping head on into our painful experiences can feel overwhelming, or even frightening. One exercise that can ease you into looking at this particular area is to visualise the walls that have been put up because of this pain. You can draw the wall(s) or build a model or sculpture. It could be a wall between you and other people (maybe specific people, maybe just people in general), a wall you’ve used to cut yourself off from future experiences, or a wall you’ve put around your heart or your memory. Draw or build the wall, then think about what the bricks are made of, where each one came from, and how they were put in place. You can represent these ideas in your drawing or model if you want to. Then think about what’s on the other side. What is the wall keeping out? What would happen if you took a brick or two away? You could either add your thoughts on these questions to your picture/model, or journal on them.
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