Martin Rice on fri 11 oct 02
Stephani Stephenson wrote:
"Martin, would you say the above 'underground man' you refer to is
necessarily dependant on or requires intoxicated states for these
breakthroughs for that type of creative action??
Are you saying the two are connected, and if so , how??"
I don't have the faintest idea concerning in what way intoxicated states and
creative action are connected or even if they are. What I do know is that in
the history of art they often go together. Here's a really short list in no
particular order. I've included no musicians for obvious reasons. Also, no
clay people because I've yet to read my first history or biography of
ceramic artists. It's a subject completely new to me. OK, here we go:
Kerouac
DeKooning
Jane Bowles
Dylan Thomas
Coleridge
Walt Disney
Toulouse-Lautrec
Jackson Pollack
Picasso
Huichol Indians Yarn Paintings (peyote)
Van Gogh
Lenny Bruce
Alan Gnsberg
Poe
Becket
Hemingway
Joyce
Raymond Carver
Adela Rogers St. John
Jean Stafford
Truman Capote
Stephen Crane
Theodore Roethke
Herman Melville
Delmore Schwartz
Scott Fitzgerald
William Faulkner
Jack London
Eugene O'Neill
John Steinbeck
Malcolm Lowry
Hart Crane
Brendan Behan
Everyone on this list could most likely add at least 5 more, I'm sure.
Disclaimers:
1. As said, I know nothing about how intoxicated states and creativity are
connected, if they are.
2. I am not supporting the position that the only great artists and thinkers
are addicts.
3. I am saying that throughout the history of art -- in all media -- there
has been and continues to be a great deal of addiction, for whatever reason.
Regards,
Martin
Lagunas de Baru, Costa Rica
www.rice-family.org
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Jennifer F Boyer on fri 11 oct 02
Hi All,
Read the book
Touched With Fire:
Manic Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament
by Kay Redfield Jamison
It talks about all the talented productive artists/writers/poets
who've been subject to manic depression. I was raised by a
family full of them and they all self medicated with
alcohol......the manic phase is incredibly productive. The
depressive phase requires....pick your spirit. My brother's was
straight vodka by the mason jar, quart size. He's dead now.
Died at 58 of one of those alcohol related embolisms......He
wrote a book that was published, built a 36 foot sailboat in his
back yard, taught anthropology and wasn't always very nice to
his 4 wives.....
So boozing isn't very amusing to me, sorry. Don't get me
started on my Mom.
Read the book though. It's fascinating, really.
Take Care,
Jennifer, seltzer connoisseur
Martin Rice wrote:
>
> Stephani Stephenson wrote:
> "Martin, would you say the above 'underground man' you refer to is
> necessarily dependant on or requires intoxicated states for these
> breakthroughs for that type of creative action??
> Are you saying the two are connected, and if so , how??"
>
> I don't have the faintest idea concerning in what way intoxicated states and
> creative action are connected or even if they are. What I do know is that in
> the history of art they often go together. Here's a really short list in no
> particular order. I've included no musicians for obvious reasons. Also, no
> clay people because I've yet to read my first history or biography of
> ceramic artists. It's a subject completely new to me. OK, here we go:
>
> Kerouac
> DeKooning
> Jane Bowles
> Dylan Thomas
> Coleridge
> Walt Disney
> Toulouse-Lautrec
> Jackson Pollack
> Picasso
> Huichol Indians Yarn Paintings (peyote)
> Van Gogh
> Lenny Bruce
> Alan Gnsberg
> Poe
> Becket
> Hemingway
> Joyce
> Raymond Carver
> Adela Rogers St. John
> Jean Stafford
> Truman Capote
> Stephen Crane
> Theodore Roethke
> Herman Melville
> Delmore Schwartz
> Scott Fitzgerald
> William Faulkner
> Jack London
> Eugene O'Neill
> John Steinbeck
> Malcolm Lowry
> Hart Crane
> Brendan Behan
>
> Everyone on this list could most likely add at least 5 more, I'm sure.
>
> Disclaimers:
> 1. As said, I know nothing about how intoxicated states and creativity are
> connected, if they are.
> 2. I am not supporting the position that the only great artists and thinkers
> are addicts.
> 3. I am saying that throughout the history of art -- in all media -- there
> has been and continues to be a great deal of addiction, for whatever reason.
>
> Regards,
> Martin
> Lagunas de Baru, Costa Rica
> www.rice-family.org
>
> ____________________________________________________________________________
> __
> Send postings to clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
>
> You may look at the archives for the list or change your subscription
> settings from http://www.ceramics.org/clayart/
>
> Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at
> melpots@pclink.com.
>
> ______________________________________________________________________________
> Send postings to clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
>
> You may look at the archives for the list or change your subscription
> settings from http://www.ceramics.org/clayart/
>
> Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at melpots@pclink.com.
--
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Jennifer Boyer mailto:jboyer@adelphia.net
Thistle Hill Pottery Montpelier VT USA
http://www.thistlehillpottery.com/
Never pass on an email warning without checking out these sites
for web hoaxes and junk:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/
http://snopes.com
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
claybair on sat 12 oct 02
Great posting Kelly! You nailed it!
Now if only the Rush wannabes read it!
Your insight on moderating was eye opening.
Also your Breathe in, Breathe out posting was spot on...
I'm wicha! My nightstand is a foot taller with magazines,
the bathrooms also have stacks of them (right next to my husband's music
magazines)!->
I am on a 4th or 5th random cycling through them... I always
find something new that I missed before!
Gayle Bair
Bainbridge Island, WA
http://claybair.com
primalmommy on sat 12 oct 02
There is a major logic problem, I think, in lists like that. The way I
figure it, everybody on that list is/was at least famous enough for
somebody to have sorted out the details of their lives (like to write a
biography or some scholarly research) -- and they were in the "public
eye".
So the question is, what percentage of people whose lives are less
visible struggle with addiction? If I could run out a list of insurance
salesmen, accountants, bus drivers, lawyers, construction workers,
loggers, housewives, and (god help us) surgeons and airline pilots with
addictions of some sort, would that prove some kind of connection
between career and lifestyle?
I'm willing to accept the possibility that some people have an
interesting creative perspective because their mental health status is a
little outside the norm. I am sure, also, that artists (and others) with
highly tuned sensitivities or depressive conditions find ways to sedate
themselves. (Like a recent description on clayart of the post-hangover
"inner peace" that comes from killing off those pesky brain cells.)
But I worry that "all artists are addicts/suicidal/unbalanced" can
become self fulfilling. Young creative types searching for an identity
are awfully quick to grab onto that whole "tortured young artist" thing,
liking the romance of "it's better to burn out than fade away". I found
I was not the only poet in college who feared that the creative path
would lead to an end like Sylvia Plath's, or Edgar Allen Poe's.
Musicians get to watch the latest bios on MTV and decide whether they
will be the drummer who overdoses, the bass player who dies in a flaming
car crash drunk, or the lead singer who slowly dies of AIDS.
The book "The Artist's Way" is great at smoking out the fears we have
about what will happen if we dare become artists. Again and again, the
vision of earless Van Gogh and the list of drunken, addicted or suicidal
artists scares people out of testing their creative limits.
I am certainly not a prude, and spend a lot of my younger years -- uh,
researching altered states of consciousness... I like a beer or two, now
and then, now that everybody is born and weaned. But I am not sure the
list of Hemingways and Hendrixes serves a very useful purpose, without a
matching list of CEOs and hairdressers and mechanics and their various
addictions.
Unfortunately it's harder to come up with a list of artists, writers,
musicians, actors with healthy habits, happy marriages and long lives:
it just doesn't make the headlines. I'd love to HAVE a list like that,
just for reassurance. In the meantime I'm going to keep working on being
included in that list one day.
Yours, Kelly in Ohio
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