One thing that was agreed upon by fellow art students was that we weren’t necessarily going into the art field because we wanted to. Lord knows there are easier ways of making a living. Instead, we created because we had to. We’d go mad without this outlet and so therefore had no choice about focusing on art.
In my own life I can trace the patterns of my moods and correlate them pretty closely to how much or how little I was creating at any given time. When I’m able to devote some time every day to my artwork, I’m much happier than I would be otherwise.
One of my favorite artists is Charles Benefiel. I was introduced to his work while taking the following course at the University of Delaware…
ARTH 422
Folk and Outsider Art
3 credits
Focuses on the traditional and popular arts of the United States. Topics covered include colonial Pennsylvania German decorative arts, Victorian Welsh gravestones, African-American textile and basketry crafts, and contemporary Inuit graphic arts. Discussions and research will focus on the relationship of folk arts to questions of ethnicity, class, popular culture, and community aesthetics.
The professor, one Bernard Herman, had met with and interviewed this artist. As it was explained (and further simplified via my description), Benefiel starts in the center of the drawing and fills in dots… counting each one up to 1,000 at which point he starts over at 1… until he has completed these lush, detailed, grotesque masterpieces.
A “sane” person would probably not be able to do that. If they started out sane, they’d either get bored after the first 700-odd dots or they’d go mad by the end. People ask me how I can have the patience to make tiny detailed heads… my answer is that I love it. It makes me feel better. Benefiel is able to function normally because he gets his demons out of his system through this productive focus. (There is a spectrum of people who show this trait, of course; I know I would never be able to complete even a square inch using his technique because my focus would give out.)
There was a story of a woman in a mental institution who begin sneaking threads from socks and created elaborate needlepoint and embroidery with no instruction prior. Once she was given medications, she stopped. I find this sad for many reasons. Must the chaos be tamed at the expense of the divine? Is an illness that reveals itself in madness and energy only to be treated with medication rather than channeled into unusual and fantastic realms?
I recognize that my questions are naive; few people would be willing to coax and care for those in the extreme throws of OCD, bipolar, etc. It is not “practical” to give them the space and safety to learn how to focus.
But, damn I wish it could be.
(Addendum 6-24-03: In the course of hunting down information on Charles Benefiel, I discovered that the American Visionary Art Museum’s current exhibit High on Life: Transcending Addiction included some of his works. On a recent trip home, I made a point of going to this show particularly because I’d never seen Benefiel’s work in person.
The dots are about the size of the pixels on my screen… and the pictures are measured in feet. They are amazing undertakings. It makes me overjoyed that he has managed to turn his demons into such breathtaking images.
Am I fawning? Yeah…)