THE STARVING ARTIST
THE MYTH OF THE STARVING ARTIST is a destructive and socially detrimental storyline. As a young man searching for meaning in life, for a place in the world and for an identity, I believed whole -heartedly in this myth. I think my own life story can serve as one simple example of self-inflicted suffering in the name of artistic and creative glory.
Once I began to climb out of the whole I dug for myself, I embarked on my first creative outburst. During the period in my early 20’s I made of a lot of work. Mostly uninformed, experimental and without direction. None the less, it was a lot – often 10-20 paintings in a day. The hardest part was finding space in my New York life for them to dry. When I wasn’t painting, or working, I was reading about the masters, and seeing as much work as I could. I idolized many of the great painters of the past, and developed an unfortunate and unhealthy disdain for my peers and contemporaries. This is quite common for new converts – not just in art, but in religion and other philosophical endeavors. It is way to boost the ego and claim that you are different and maybe better than everyone else. One of my favorite readings was a book of Van Gogh’s letters. Aside from the true power of reading the words and theories of a master, the letters shed light on what day to day life is like for an aspiring painter. And, make no mistake about it, not much has changed in that regard, nor should it. In one letter Van Gogh recounts his day of shopping in the street fair – where he ran into his friend Pierre Bonnard. Small world huh? Now, we all know the story of Van Gogh’s renowned spats on psychological self-torture and how he was often so broke that he couldn’t pay rent, buy food etc. He borrowed money constantly from his brother Theo. Yet, on this day, Van Gogh had enough spare change in his pocket to purchase an authentic Pierre Bonnard painting on the spot.
I can’t say unequivocally, but my own experience with being broke did not include enough pocket money to buy art – even art on the street. If it was a good day, I had enough for a slice of pizza and a pack of smokes to suck down at the bar. Van Gogh was, by all accounts, certifiably nuts. One look at his ear or lack thereof provides enough evidence to support this theory. Yet, why do we continue to promote the myth that he was broke and starving? He came from a middle-class family – like most great artists. Had a well to do brother that coincidentally was an art dealer, and hob knobbed around the affluent Parisian art crowd of the late 1800’s. Maybe he was broke by their standards, but he was most certainly a far cry from the peasants stealing loaves of bread to feed themselves.
How many young artists, musicians and other creatives sought out a life as the starving artist, in the name of Van Gogh and the romantic notion that with great suffering comes great art? How many worked just as hard at destroying themselves as they did on their own creative work? I would argue that most of the greatest artists that went down this path would have been every bit as great without their aspirational self-abuse.
But more to the point, regarding stories of the great starving artist suffering in the name of making great art - I call bullshit. The more you read about the so-called greats, the more you realize that everyone’s story is their own. Some live to be old as fuck – like Matisse, and others lose focus, lose themselves and die too young – like Basquiat and Pollock. I think it is difficult to quantify the greatness of any of the aforementioned artists. Who was better? That is an irrelevant question. What is relevant is their story, how it is personified and influences the next great thinkers of the future. I think, at least on my part, that artists have a responsibility to correct the wrong of the previous generations glorification of the suffering artist. Let’s all try to live a little better.