Mood:
incredulousTopic: building business
Today I emailed a short statement about myself for Schizophrenia Bullitain to use in their journal along with the picture "Karen With Pineapple". This is what I wrote.
Every time I thought about doing a self portrait I imagined myself with a pineapple sitting on my head. My husband says that when I walk through the fruit section of a grocery store my aura flairs off my head in waves of purple light, so, perhaps I love fruit. Besides being a wife and schizophrenic I am a mystic and can predict the future with a tarot deck. More of my artwork can be seen on my website www.schizophreniaandart.com. My goal in life is to one day have a painting in a museum and to fit into a Prada dress.
I did exaggerate. That aura thing only happened once. And truth is, what I can do with the tarot anyone I think with an instruction manual (because I use the instruction manual every time!) can read the future with tarot. If not to give an accurate picture of the past, present & future, what is the tarot for? So, not only can anyone who wishes read the tarot (if they have a good instruction manual), but, I don't do the tarot much because I happen to believe that the future is none of my business. And most certainly, other people's futures are none of my business to peep into. I learned that lesson the hard way.
Here is the beginning of a first person account of what it is like to live with a schizophrenic illness. A first draft of an essay to be submitted to Schizophrenia Bullitain to see if they will publish it, perhaps, in the same issue that has my cover.
It is difficult to explain to people how my schizophrenic illness makes me disabled. I am an artist, a nice thing to lable myself because it implies a lifestyle of indeterminate work hours and indeterminate income. In short, no one can tell just by looking how success or unsuccessful an artist is. And since artists are steroetyped as being a bit odd and fey, the eccentrities of schizophrenia personality are attributed to having a creative mind. If a stranger is good hearted then they imagine the best and are comfortable in conversation, treating me as an equal. Few try assertain my productivity by asking "how many paintings do you make a year?" The answer is 4 or 5. Once a business man asked me "how much money do you make in a year?" My answer to this question is next to nothing. Usually I lose money spent on paint, brushes, canvass, frames and publicity. The needeling questions about who I am are usually passed by for more exciting topics such as "What do you paint?"
The hard fact about being an artist with a significant psychiatric disability is that talent needs to be worked hard for it to advance. A person can be born creative, but without hours of practice and hard work that creativity will most likely not become significant. The artist will not stand apart and above the crowd. If a mental disability limits the hours of mental concentration every day then the creative talent advances slowly. Usually too slowly for the person to become commercially competitive with non-disabled artists.
Once, a small gallery owner and I struck up an aquaintence that lasted several years. He professionally framed several of my canvasses himself. When I visited him in his shop I was always at my most attractive. Showered, rested, and a paying customer. The new car I parked in his lot had been bought for me by my husband. This man couldn't "see" anything wrong with me. My creeping rate of artistic production baffled him. So he once said to me, "You have a nice personality. Why can't you get a job at the kennel down the road?" Meaning that I couldn't be so disabled that I couldn't clean excrement off cement floors. Perhaps this is true. For several hours every day perhaps I could use my best hours of clear thought and concentration in such a task.
What the frame shop owner wanted was to prove my status of being disabled wrong. His theory that I could become a contributing member of society, earning a wage, was intended as a compliment. It did not matter if I wanted to clean up after caged animals. What was important was the proof that a meanial job required no education and minimal mental skills was available to me. If I declined then the fault was with me and my personal values, and not my illness.
spacey
Yesterday I found an interview with Aaron Holliday, the schizophrenic painter I admire who painted "Baby Fish". I felt sad for Holliday because he took the same gamble that I am taking, trying to stand on his own two feet an make money as an artist. It backfired when he lost his social security income. Now he has no medical care for the schizophrenia and that is a very dangerous position to be in. The disease can be progressive, with psychosis worsening and brain damage resulting in an even lower level of artistic productivity. Un-medicated it is possible that he could lose that ability to make art for several years or even, forever. Somebody has to talk straight to Holliday about the severity of his illness and what he needs to do to defend his gift and his sanity. Somebody needs to say things that would break his heart, I bet that none of his caretakers has the guts to do it.
The Art of Aaron Holliday
Many of Mr. Holliday's pencil drawings feature an eagle and a Native American character. In one, the eagle is soaring above mountains and a stream, with the full span of the bird's wing illustrated. In another, "Yellow Hawk", the bird is perched atop the outstretched arm of the Native American man with a forest backdrop The man is wearing long braids and a feather. Like all of Mr. Holliday's other works, these are finely detailed.
d'oh
Bill MacPhee is the publisher & creator of "Schizophrenia Digest". It is a high quality magazine designed for people who have schizophrenia.
MacPhee chooses to frequently publish short articles by persons with schizophrenia. It's great fun to see what these writers look like, pictures of them sipping coffee in a New York City bistro or standing in the middle of a stream fly fishing. And then, how I love to read their crisp, clean prose. 