EP8: No Pain(t), No Gain

In this episode, we question whether pain is necessary to create, and dig into the 'tortured artist' stereotype.

Key Takeaways:

1. Being engaged with negative or painful feelings, does not make you a negative person.
2. The tortured artist archetype might exist because: a) What you engage with the most, might be more likely to come up in your art. b) As artists we are encouraged and expected to share more feely and openly about ourselves and inner workings, that means happiness, sadness, and everything in-between. c) We might share those private things with the public, more than other professions, which can give us the label of tortured
3. We wonder when pain is a strong part of your artistic process, what happens when pain is absent? The same can be said for any other emotion or state of being.
4. Connection with the viewer or public through your art, doesn’t have to solely be based in pain. Happy, compassionate, and loving art ALSO provides connection. Note, that sometimes these works of art, can also be borne out of pain.
5. Ask: Do we need to be melancholy or live in squalor, to work relentless hours, sacrificing self, relationships etc. to be seen as valid artists? If yes, why? Do we perhaps believe that there is a price to pay to be an artist? OR do we see suffering as noble?
6. There are distinctions between the types of pain in art, the pain before coming to the canvas, the pain in the process, the pain in the physical execution and even the pain in the final painting.
7. There is legitimacy in ease. A quick painting is valid, and is only quick because of the work you put into learning and doing, prior to said painting
8. 141 hours spent on 1 painting, is as valid as 141 paintings created each hour. 
9. An important benchmark with art, is not that it is torture, or appears tortured but rather that it is true to yourself.
10. When you have requirements of yourself that are not a part of your process, such as flogging yourself to sit at the easel for hours on end, that is when you torture yourself. This torture does NOT lead to more art.
11. Sometimes we might avoid pain, or aim to fix or defeat it, in order to fit a narrative of overcoming. We may say we are inspired by pain, or create inspite of pain, those modes are valid.

There is another mode that we can try too though; and that is to hold hands with pain, and create with it, side by side.

Tamara Laporte:https://bit.ly/3zFnnGW

On Van Gogh: One of the periods where he painted the most paintings and his most loved.

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Iris

Website: https://iris-impressions.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iris.impressions.art/

Tamara

Website: https://www.ruskea.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ruskea_art/

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