Art Addiction?

paper collage, digital art

Signs Become A Luxury, RTomens, 2017

I did not go 'cold turkey' quite but spent a week not making very much art because along with LJ I was on holiday from Work. The use of a phrase associated with drug addiction is appropriate if my art-making can be called 'addictive'. Whatever we do can be called anything according to the observer's opinion, of course. How others see our activity can be problematic if we take their opinion seriously or, I should say, actually consider what they say as a possibly valid response.

Artists do well to ignore what anyone says about them, especially if it relates to the way they dress. The other important issue is the art they make. In the cliched romantic view artists are supposed to be 'sensitive' but we know that cannot hold as a generalisation. Artists, you have no doubt realised, are just people who make art rather than being a special breed. That is not to say that artists see the world in the same way as Mr & Mrs People because in many cases they blatantly do not. Otherwise, like celebrities and Pop stars, they are all too human.

The sensitive artist, however, is prone to being hurt. Like all unknowns I do not have to deal with criticism and can therefore convince myself that I am thick-skinned and criticism would bounce harmlessly off me. I cannot predict with any certainty how I would react if I should become the subject of criticism from several sources. 

What has all that to do with addiction? Possibly nothing. My mind strays according to paths laid out by thoughts which spring from nowhere, seemingly, although their source must be a result of previous thoughts to some extent. I am less addicted than driven and I have tried over the years to identify the source of this drive. Sometimes I think it stems from my adolescence and years spent being denied the opportunity to thoroughly investigate my creativity, which was hardly encouraged by my father. Today I bear him no resentment for being so practical in trying to deter me from being full-time artist. Now I understand why he was like that.

Not being a painter (very often), or one who spends days over precise pixel arrangements, I can create images relatively quickly. It would be a mistake, however, to think that speed of production is the reason I make the amount of images that I do. That is only part of the equation. I am not endlessly unsatisfied therefore trapped in a speedy production cycle. I mention the possibility of this in relation to the internet and it's ability to whip us on in search of something so quickly that whatever we find cannot truly satisfy because we know we can travel so fast. The click momentum is unstoppable if we give ourselves over to it, only bringing it to an end through mental exhaustion.

I would philosophise about 'fast art' but currently don't feel inclined to expand on that subject. When I have more time, perhaps I will. TTFN