The creative versus the dysfunctional mind

Where do we make the distinction between the artist and the idiot?

I’ve been thinking lately on the distinction between the deeply creative mind, and the insane, dysfunctional mind. Perhaps the boundary between the two is needle-tin. Perhaps it is, in places, a vague gradient.

Perhaps there is more overlap than I dare to admit.

When I think of those that we label artists, I mainly perceive a ‘deviation from the norm’, minds that deviate far beyond what the average person can imagine.

It is about picking up on ideas that flow from the ether - these untouchable phantoms that our antennae funnel into our brains, where the ideas bounce around around the unique internal structure each of our minds have, until they take shape; form into tangible art that comes out in that specific way only that mind could have moulded it.

It is about a certain sensitivity, about letting go of the norm, the 'thinking outside of the box' can fundamentally only happen when one is able to stray past the conventional rules, boundaries and expectations that society has installed for us.

In the moments I ponder what makes a person 'insane', I inevitably end up with similar concepts and definitions.

Perhaps it's the intersection of these where we find the archetype of the ‘suffering artist’.

We can also not make the argument of intent. While it is true that mental health dysfunction is most often unintentional (and difficult to control), many artists experience their urge to create as obsessive and compulsive, and many artists simply can not be any other way than the way they are. Take away their pen, their brush, their camera, and they will experience profound distress and mental anguish. Their creative mind is not a tool to represent the world, it is the very mechanism by which they process and experience it; art being the output of that natural state of being.

Is it about mental clarity? Is the distinction simply being aware of the fact that you see the world differently? Can anyone truly step outside of themselves and be an objective observer? I argue, no. The true artist isn't someone who switches between a creative section of their mind and then back to the conventional side once outside the studio or workroom.

There is some implied expectation in ‘art’, that odd and intangible thing that the artist produces; art is something that can (or should) be enjoyed. It has to result in something that can be interpreted (however liberally, and however far that interpretation strays from the intention of the artist). It has to be something that can be understood, digested. Something that is palatable and not off-putting.

Ultimately, art has to carry some degree of beauty.

Let me specify that I define 'beauty' not as a purely aesthetic element, but simply the presence of one or more grains of information that allows your work to be digested into meaning - a foothold for legibility that allows the meaning of the work to transfer from its medium to an emotional or sensory experience.

When there is that fundamental absence of beauty it can not attach itself to any of the senses of the outsider, and thus loses any appeal. The beauty in art is in essence the bridge of interpretation between creator and consumer. It is the sugary taste of the syrup that gets the medicine in.

When this bridge of interpretation is not provided by the artist, or can not be found by the consumer the creator loses the label of artist, and becomes the blabbering fool. The charlatan who has lost his mind, and, worst of all, has no sense of taste.

In a sense, I suppose, we must ensure that the consumer finds that thing to cling on to, that which makes the creation ‘relatable’.

If you stray too far from the norm, or fall too deep in the creative exploration exercise, you deviate too far from what the consumer can absorb, and return with something that you, the creator, may find to be profound and true, but that is finally too clustered (or too chaotic), too complex to understand without the thread of narrative that is inherent in the mind it came from.

Perhaps you rock the boat, perhaps a lot, perhaps you push against social norms (perhaps even against what is currently seen as the direction you need to push to be ‘pushing against’). Perhaps your ideas can not be smoothly interpreted by the lens of the current zeitgeist. You are not understood – and thus – rejected as an artist – and your only chance at redemption is for the times to change enough, so that in some future time, some people start to relate. Here we find plenty of artists of the past, who, in their lifetimes found only ridicule and obscurity, and whose works have become beloved works of arts only long after they themselves died (often in lonely, mocked – or ignored – poverty).

Many masterpieces have been dug out from between the folds of history and rehabilitated - works that were deemed unpalatable, undigestible, unappealing to those lucky enough (and entirely unaware of it) to live when the works were created.

The artist is separated from the idiot by the consumer.

I suppose only time will tell for those of us that have not yet been categorized.