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Some thoughts about art making and depression.
a year ago
I watched a video by Robert Sapolsky about depression ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzUXcBTQXKM ) and wanted to write down some thoughts on how it relates to art making. I’ll also reference “Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (And Rewards) of Artmaking” by David Bayles and Ted Orland in this. I’m no psychologist or neurologist, so my understanding may be flawed.
A scenario most artists have experienced: You sit in front of an empty canvas with a picture in mind and yet find yourself unable to start it. What happened to stop you? Pablo Picasso once said: “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” Where does the inhibition to start a painting come from? For a child, painting is child’s play. Play behavior in a safe environment to improve skills. Literal child’s play. The difference lies in the anticipated outcomes. Something made that artist live in fear doing the wrong thing; the fear of wasting their time.
Let’s build up this hypothetical scenario gradually in severity:
An artist finishes a painting and is unhappy with how it turned out. This creates a shift in the anticipation for the next painting. You may think that’s the start of the problem, but it really isn’t. Experiments by B. F. Skinner showed that uncertainty in the outcome of an action creates more motivation to engage in said action. If making a good painting is a gamble, then the artist may become addicted to making paintings.
What if art can’t be a gamble? That happens when the artist thinks that they can’t try again. Maybe it’s a deadline or lack of money to buy more paint. Now the brain reacts differently. Making this painting becomes categorized as a negative experience to be avoided in the future. The artist will feel depressed because of the failure. Failing doesn’t feel good. The difference between feeling depressed and becoming depressed depends on how the brain explains the failure. Finding excuses is healthy. Even if it’s delusional, if the artist thinks they failed because they didn’t sleep well or ate something bad, then they recover from the depressive feeling and return to being motivated. If the artist finds no excuse, then the brain becomes prone to avoiding behavior that leads to those bad feelings. The behavior was making art.
Now an artist starts another painting with an increased desire to avoid painting because of past negative experiences. To overcome this avoidance desire requires some pressure. The stronger the pressure, the higher the psychological stress will be. Lack of control and lack of outlets will amplify the consequences of the psychological stress. Examples for lack of control are working with clients who choose when a painting is done instead of the artist or relying on unpredictable social media algorithms to bring the art to an audience. Examples for lack of outlets can be a lack of social contacts that care about art and pressure to keep a public image. If the stress is large enough, then the artist will have a strong stress response; anxiety.
If this depression occurs repeatedly, then anxiety turns into depression. The artist enters a helpless mindset. Problems become overgeneralized. Bad outcomes with individual paintings get elevated to failures of the artist as a person. The artist accepts that they can’t avoid those terrible outcomes. The defining symptom of depression is anhedonia. The inability to feel pleasure. Memories and imagination become distorted. The artist becomes unable to recall when making art went well. The artist becomes unable to experience art as engaging and in turn unable to imagine engaging images to paint. This is major depression, a serious medical disorder. The artist gets stuck ruminating on bad experiences. They feel guilty for not making as much art as they think an artist should make and ascribe that failure to their character. Psychomotor retardation however is a symptom of depression. It is the inability to take action and make decisions. Bad experiences have forced the brain to always prefer avoidance behavior. Depression also hampers focus, memory and libido. All problems making art even more difficult to make.
At this point, the artist has entered a depressive spiral. Here I want to emphasize that depression is a real disease. It’s no personal failure to get help. Most artists experience at least some part of this process and the earlier they get help to escape it, the better. You’re not alone with this experience.
There are some ways to shield yourself against falling down the spiral. I like the book Art & Fear for this purpose, because its success speaks of how common the experience is for artists. It’s a book full of quotes from famous artists who struggled the same way. Making art is hard. I doubt there are any artists who haven’t struggled with making their art. “Most artists who start quit. Those who continue have learned how not to quit.” The majority of art students quit after school, because they lose their support system; and yet, art is made. Art is made by ordinary people, all fighting against uncertainty. They embrace uncertainty. To cherish a happy accident means that you don’t fear failing. That is the greatest advice given by Bob Ross. Make the mistakes small. He was so successful, because he helped you not to quit. Not with the painting at hand and not with painting in general either.
I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts on this topic. They took up space in my mind for a while now and it was about time I let them out. (:
A scenario most artists have experienced: You sit in front of an empty canvas with a picture in mind and yet find yourself unable to start it. What happened to stop you? Pablo Picasso once said: “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” Where does the inhibition to start a painting come from? For a child, painting is child’s play. Play behavior in a safe environment to improve skills. Literal child’s play. The difference lies in the anticipated outcomes. Something made that artist live in fear doing the wrong thing; the fear of wasting their time.
Let’s build up this hypothetical scenario gradually in severity:
An artist finishes a painting and is unhappy with how it turned out. This creates a shift in the anticipation for the next painting. You may think that’s the start of the problem, but it really isn’t. Experiments by B. F. Skinner showed that uncertainty in the outcome of an action creates more motivation to engage in said action. If making a good painting is a gamble, then the artist may become addicted to making paintings.
What if art can’t be a gamble? That happens when the artist thinks that they can’t try again. Maybe it’s a deadline or lack of money to buy more paint. Now the brain reacts differently. Making this painting becomes categorized as a negative experience to be avoided in the future. The artist will feel depressed because of the failure. Failing doesn’t feel good. The difference between feeling depressed and becoming depressed depends on how the brain explains the failure. Finding excuses is healthy. Even if it’s delusional, if the artist thinks they failed because they didn’t sleep well or ate something bad, then they recover from the depressive feeling and return to being motivated. If the artist finds no excuse, then the brain becomes prone to avoiding behavior that leads to those bad feelings. The behavior was making art.
Now an artist starts another painting with an increased desire to avoid painting because of past negative experiences. To overcome this avoidance desire requires some pressure. The stronger the pressure, the higher the psychological stress will be. Lack of control and lack of outlets will amplify the consequences of the psychological stress. Examples for lack of control are working with clients who choose when a painting is done instead of the artist or relying on unpredictable social media algorithms to bring the art to an audience. Examples for lack of outlets can be a lack of social contacts that care about art and pressure to keep a public image. If the stress is large enough, then the artist will have a strong stress response; anxiety.
If this depression occurs repeatedly, then anxiety turns into depression. The artist enters a helpless mindset. Problems become overgeneralized. Bad outcomes with individual paintings get elevated to failures of the artist as a person. The artist accepts that they can’t avoid those terrible outcomes. The defining symptom of depression is anhedonia. The inability to feel pleasure. Memories and imagination become distorted. The artist becomes unable to recall when making art went well. The artist becomes unable to experience art as engaging and in turn unable to imagine engaging images to paint. This is major depression, a serious medical disorder. The artist gets stuck ruminating on bad experiences. They feel guilty for not making as much art as they think an artist should make and ascribe that failure to their character. Psychomotor retardation however is a symptom of depression. It is the inability to take action and make decisions. Bad experiences have forced the brain to always prefer avoidance behavior. Depression also hampers focus, memory and libido. All problems making art even more difficult to make.
At this point, the artist has entered a depressive spiral. Here I want to emphasize that depression is a real disease. It’s no personal failure to get help. Most artists experience at least some part of this process and the earlier they get help to escape it, the better. You’re not alone with this experience.
There are some ways to shield yourself against falling down the spiral. I like the book Art & Fear for this purpose, because its success speaks of how common the experience is for artists. It’s a book full of quotes from famous artists who struggled the same way. Making art is hard. I doubt there are any artists who haven’t struggled with making their art. “Most artists who start quit. Those who continue have learned how not to quit.” The majority of art students quit after school, because they lose their support system; and yet, art is made. Art is made by ordinary people, all fighting against uncertainty. They embrace uncertainty. To cherish a happy accident means that you don’t fear failing. That is the greatest advice given by Bob Ross. Make the mistakes small. He was so successful, because he helped you not to quit. Not with the painting at hand and not with painting in general either.
I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts on this topic. They took up space in my mind for a while now and it was about time I let them out. (:
We're not alone. We're artists who are normal people like all the others. Thank you for letting me know that I'm not alone either. (:
Our trials are endless, fruitful and damning, tragic and beautiful, but as you said, we're in it together collectively, apart but connected by the same root, and at the end of the day that's pretty damned cool to me!
Wonderful summary.
Thank you!
It is, even at the best of times, incredibly difficult for me to get started on drawing because of high self expectations, just so. I've worked hard at trying to break that down, but it creeps back in anytime I've not created anything, outside of work, for a while.
Something we as artists can do is talk with others about our work after it's done and acknowledge that it was worth making. If it's work for a client, them being very vocal about how happy they are with the work can do that. But that only works if you aren't already in the depression spiral. Once you experience anhedonia, then your brain will discount vocal appreciation. It will reframe it as politeness or find reasons for why your work should have been better. At that point a therapist can help by reframing your experiences. They help you realize that experiences you thought where bad weren't bad at all.
I hope you find easier ways to overcome that hurdle. It's an unfortunate flaw in how human minds work, that sometimes a desire to do something sometimes isn't enough to start doing it.