art and pain

the man said Art doesn't work without pain.

i have been taught to disregard statements like that but, sometimes, when i look at my own work, the painful origins of my images are too stark and strong to deny. i read his statement again and see that it is honest, accurate in a way that makes me uncomfortable. uncomfortable maybe because i am an american and i want to seem tough, cool, collected, unshakable. then i remember i have a blog and i remember the things i've written on this blog and the reality of the situation dawns on me: OH SHIT! MY BLOG IS ON THE INTERNET! EVERYONE CAN SEE IT! hahahaha! silly, i know, but i try not to think about it. i've actually been pretty successful at convincing myself that no one reads this thing and that all my words here are really just skipping stones across a quiet lake. it's better for me to think that way about this practice because otherwise i might not say anything at all. i might become too embarrassed, too ashamed of my own life, my own lived experiences and expressions of pain. i might hide instead and cry where no one can see.

but where would be the benefit in that? where would be the art?

it is more than pain, something beyond pain, but pain nevertheless, in each contour, in every shimmer... because life is like that too. some things must be alchemised if we expect to be able to look at them. some types of pain has to be romanticized in order to even be carried. some pains are just that great, just that crushing. a conversion must take place. we develop new eyes, new words, new hands that are capable of holding new pain. we must, if we must continue.




Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terror, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.

— Anaïs Nin