Art and Misery Aren't Synonymous

It's finals and I simply must vent about something that has been on my mind all week...

I have been invested in the arts for as long as I can remember;
I took studio art lessons when I was little, I play piano (or used to), I sang in a choir in high school, and I am currently pursuing a career in stage acting.

For some reason, when people have asked me what I want to do with my life, I hesitate, because the minute I say “I want to be an actress” I’m so paranoid people will assume that I’m going to be one of those girls striving to be a big film star when really she's pushing her luck and setting herself up for a miserable life as a starving waitress.

First of all, I’ve come to terms with that, and I know the world I’m stepping into; a world of constant rejection. Though I may spend a little time in L.A., ultimately I want to be an equity stage actor with an MFA. I’m not going into it for money or fame. It’s been said before by many, I know, but here I am saying it again: I’m doing it for the art.

But then the term “artist” itself carries negative connotations. There are too many artists (painters, poets, songwriters, and actors alike) that wallow in self-loathing and pity, who try marketing off their misery and call it art.

Now I can be a very moody person- there have been days where all I could do was sit and complain and cry until I was hoarse, and there are some weeks where I go days without cracking a smile (and it’s not just PMS). But eventually I get over everything that’s been bumming me out and I buckle down and deal with the task at hand no matter how hard it may be.

Granted there are millions of people that have gone through greater hardships than me; I lead a relatively normal life and there have been one too many occasions where I have felt guilty about that. I have observed and met artists that project their sob stories onto the world and romanticize themselves as being revolutionary when really they’re just making me feel as if I’m being alienated from their art because I can’t really understand it because I haven’t been through the same shit they have.

If this sounds harsh, I apologize- I may not understand them and everything that they went through but I can try to understand and sympathize.

It seems as though these artists put themselves up on pedestals because they have supposedly experienced so much of the pain and misery of the world. They seem to say: “The more painful experiences you’ve had, the better the artist you are.”

Pardon me, but that is bullshit!

Art is more than sadness and misery!

There’s such thing as happy art too! Great happy art at that!

This may be a popular notion with actors, especially, who like to employ method acting into their work. When one acts, however, one draws from more than just personal experiences. A lot of it is based off of simple observation. Stanislavski himself said that an actor must be an observer of the world.

I haven’t been through anything that I’d consider particularly traumatic, but I am a very empathetic person and seeing one friend in pain is enough to make me morose for the rest of the day.

Granted I’m not going through the same pain they are, but I can listen to them, I can imagine, and (again) I can sympathize.

There are great artists out there that have led relatively normal and happy lives who can understand pain and sadness and create effective art expressing any angst they feel, such as Conor Oberst; one of the greatest singer/songwriters of our time.

I recently watched an independent artsy film called Four Eyed Monsters about two artists, and at one point, via a kind of video-diary conversation, the guy says:

“There’re people out there…there are people that have something and as some sort of weird spite to the world purposely give that to others.”

When i first heard him say that, I thought he was referring to the very artists I have been talking about, but the second time watching it I realized he was referring to the possibility that she purposely gave him herpes.

Nevertheless, the same can be said about “misery” art. Not to say that it’s like herpes; there’s a lot of art out there that was inspired by painful experiences that the artist went through. But if that pain is being wallowed in and projected onto others for pity, then it's just as annoying as herpes.

Art is meant to be an outlet for people to express themselves. A majority of what is expressed is negative, but that’s what art is there for; to relieve yourself of that negative energy so you can overcome it and be content once again. Those who have not managed to find a way to persevere and rise above the demons in their lives shouldn’t expect pity (at least from me) nor the right to call themselves superior artists until they have really made the effort to bring an end to their grief.