I remember my grandmother telling me that 'most' comic geniuses were 'terribly unhappy' people in private and that other famously 'mad' artists, actors, etc., had 'tragic' lives or were 'eccentric'. Words like 'mental health'. 'insanity'' or 'madness' were never used. Her own depression and agrophobia (so obvious to me in hindsight), were 'nerves' and my own sometimes strangeness merely the result of being 'hightly strung'. Many years later my then husband insisted on telling people that I was suffering from 'stress' when the darkness finally came rolling out of the cupboard and engulfed me.
Although mental health issues are now far more openly discussed in the press and other public forums; although the originally insensitive handling of Frank Bruno's breakdown by some newspapers could cause an outcry of disgust and an outpouring of public sympathy; 'madness' is still 'the other'. Something to be viewed with sympathy laced with fear and embaressment from a distance . Better still, to be ignored or made light of in the hope that it will not prove contagious. Perhaps fear of the mentally ill is really the fear that our own demons will be awoken by proximity?
What has all this to do with art?
Despite the fact that society is far more open about all kinds of things than it was in the past. despite far more widespread acceptance of difference, we still live in a world defined by conformity. In the 21st century there is far more room for individuality than there was fifty, forty, thirty years ago. But we still educate our children to 'fit in'. The boxes are still there, they have merely become larger.
Creativity is not top of the list of skills to be taught in schools and originality is often drowned in the need to pass exams and to meet accepted criteria. Art is taught as yet another subject to be passed by those who are 'good at it'. Yet creativity is a fundamental part of our humanity. Take a closer look at the person who maintains that they have no artistic talent, at the one who maintains that they have not a creative bone in their body. Some where you will see their art shining through.
The one who spends hours in the shed building models, tying flys, rebuilding an engine, a car, a motorbike. The one who effortlessly turns a building into a home, who can place a cushion or a flower in just the right place to take your breath away. Open your eyes and see the same dress on a dozen girls, yet each one made somehow different. Walk into a craft fair or wander the internet and catch your breath at the sheer volume and diversity of skills and artistry that surround you.
If art requires madness, then we are all mad. But does madness require art? Yes. In the same way that all of us, the one and the three in four, require a voice. Those of us lost in the shadows are so often voiceless. Silenced by by pain, by memories, by lives lived upside down and inside out. We are still only human. Creative beings with a need to join our song to the symphany around us. So like so many others, the sane, the bad, the good, the mad, the young, the old, we lift our paint brushes and our pens and sing our stories into the world.
