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Depression

Crippling depression was actually where I had my first breakthrough on learning to work through my angst. I have been very depressed in my life, and for long periods of time. In fact, if you look at my progression meme on dA, you might notice there is no art at all for 2001. It was for longer than a year, and I did nothing but sit around being depressed. I lost all desire to create art. I thought maybe I was done as an artist, that whatever artistic talent I had in me had been sucked out and thrown away.

When I recovered from this particular inconsolable pit, it was not through some fortuitous return of ambition or inspiration. It was just that I decided my life had absolutely no worthwhile purpose other than being an artist, and it was either get back on the horse or wither up and die. So I forced myself to start drawing again, and wrote my comic and learned how to paint. And it worked: I felt better. These days, the more depressed or stressed out I am, the more I turn to my art to deal with it. In some weird Pavlovian way, it's become a near-guaranteed mood boost for me.

1. Misery Wears Itself Out.

   Like when you leave a kid alone to "cry it out." Barring clinical depression or sustained grief, a few hours to a few days is all it takes to work depression chemicals out of your system, provided you don't feed them with more depression. So, you know, ignore it and it will go away.

2. Refuse To Indulge.

   ... with food, or shopping, or time off: you will regret it later. And indulging your misery leads to less time making art leads to a poor portfolio leads to more depression, whereas doing more art leads to a tangible end product which may actually make you happy. It may completely fail in a giant pile of brown acrylic ick, true, but it's still a better bet.

3. Take Better Care Of Your Body.

   Eat right, exercise, and stick to your default sleep schedule. Your health and your mood are pretty closely intertwined. And although technically junk food is a better short-term mood boost than running for an hour, the latter is better in the long run. Plus, as an artist you are probably hugely out of shape with a lifetime of back aches in front of you. I recommend getting a yoga tape or something.

4. Avoid The Internet.

   It is very easy to go online looking for support or distraction. The former is scarce and the latter abundant. In fact, the more time you spend online, the more you will realize that no one there gives a shit about you or even knows you exist.

5. Music Is A Great Motivator.

   Someone mentioned this on ReMINDBlog and I realized that I do often use music to, uh, set the mood. I have playlists that I associate with certain art projects and just hearing that music makes me feel energized to work on something. You'll have to set up these playlists when you aren't depressed, mind you (you don't want the I-just-broke-up-with-my-boyfriend set of mopey songs, after all), but repeat the association with enough positive art-making moments and this can be the magic bullet for getting you off your ass and working again.

6. Only One Stage Of Art Takes Mood Into Consideration: Design.

   If you have multiple projects at once (and most people do), then at least one should be at a labor-only stage where you can work on it regardless of emotional state. Some of your art may actually require you to be depressed (abstract painting! poetry!). If not, read a book, watch an artsy film, or otherwise try to do things that offer some passive self-improvement.

7. Stop Being A Baby.

   Oglaf made this awesome comic last week, which is precisely how I see my own artistic muse: The Blank Page. Tell yourself to man up and stop being such a goddamn whiner. It's time for a military-style pep-talk: "Do you want that bitchy high school art teacher to be right about you, Ms. Everything-Is-Sooo-Hard?!?!" :)

A Final Note

We always have some excuse for why we don't do more art. It could be anything I've said, or something I've missed, or that one thing only you agonize over. But in the end, listening to any of your excuses means less work and less work means less self-esteem and less skill. And less self-esteem and less skill lead to more fear and more dissatisfaction and less validation and more depression, and consequently less work. I've offered up a long list of coping mechanisms, compromises, pep-talks, and nagging lectures, but when you get right down to it, what we all really need to do is stop listening to the excuses at all. Like acquiring mental earplugs, fitted to our own minds, to drown out the noise of our own angst.

NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

Have you read the prior articles on Fear, Dissatisfaction, and Validation?