Mood:
d'ohTopic: building business
Got a computer virus today. Have to take my laptop to the computer geeks tomorrow to get it cleaned out. Can't stay on the internet for long. Until I get back, here is an interview just published in the February journal of Clinical Psychiatric News. When I get back online I'll insert pictures of the two drawings that I refer to in the interview.
The interview was done by phone. Now I know what it means to have statements "taken out of context".
Volume 34, Issue 2, Page 33 (February 2006)
The Art of Karen Blair
DEEANNA FRANKLIN (Associate Editor)
Article Outline
The Artist's Reflections
Copyright
The Web site for artist Karen Blair starts out with a striking statement: "All the pictures and all the writing on this site are my own. It is an honest place. My blood carries the template for schizophrenia. Because of what my blood made my brain, I have lived an unconventional life."
Growing up, Ms. Blair would have rejected the idea of becoming an artist. She was known for her ambition and drive, and after admission to Barnard College, she believed that she would become a lawyer, senator, or - as predicted by two high school friends - president.
But schizophrenia destroyed her plans, as she writes on her site, www.schizophreniaandart.com: "I could not earn a college degree, for I perceive the classroom to be a savage place. And when I make an effort my mind falls to pieces after several short hours. So I am poorly equipped for most employment."
Now at age 37, she is candid about her struggles to remain well, which medications make feasible. She is also realistic about what the drugs will never make possible. She is quick to point out that medications may smooth the rough edges of her illness, but the drugs are not a cure.
"Freud said the key to happiness is two things: work and love," Ms. Blair said. "My medications give me enough emotional stability so that I can have relationships with my family and my [husband]. I have love, and I have work, and therefore, I have happiness. Once I gave up some dreams, I was able to find this thing of becoming an artist."
The Artist's Reflections
I went to Barnard College, and I was going to be an English major. I did not start drawing until I was 30. Until then, I was trying to go to school. I was trying to recover, get a degree, work. I was trying to do everything I could to get back into mainstream society. I had been institutionalized for 2 years at The Institute for Living, and I felt that my mind was like a muscle, and all I needed to do was strengthen it. But I kept ending up in the hospital.
I lived on my own, and I used the subculture of the mentally ill. I used food banks. I live in Connecticut, which is a wealthy state, and I always felt that it was very easy to be poor when you're living in a wealthy state. There was big garbage day, and on that day people would put their furniture out on the curbs, so that's how I got furniture and art frames.
I felt I was being savvy in terms of answering the question: "How do I live on this very restricted budget and still have a good quality of life?" I walked everywhere. What was most important to me was a good pair of shoes. I enjoyed the sunshine. Sometimes I enjoyed getting caught in the rain. I was reading Camus' early diaries from when he was poor. He said, "Poor people feel like they own the sky." I'd walk down the street, and there would be this beautiful blue sky, and I was wearing my thrift store clothing, my silk shirt and my Gap chinos and a good pair of shoes. I'd look up into the sky and think: "Yeah, I feel like I own the sky. Camus was right."
In my 20s, I made a choice not to have children. I was seeing people with mental illness having their children taken away from them - sometimes, justifiably so. I could barely take care of myself, so I had my tubes tied so there would be no accidents. It was a very difficult choice, but it would break my heart to give my child up for adoption. I was 27 when I did it.
What you're seeing in [my] early works is a lot of influence of psychotic thought, for instance, use of space. Every inch of the paper is covered. There's lots of little figurines, little people, flowers. They call it compulsive drawing. The themes are very mythological. I'm not using photographs or pictures from real life. Everything is straight from my imagination, and I have no desire to make water look like real waves. There was also no reference really to what things are supposed to look like. There are monsters, mermaids, angels - that's [the impact of] Risperdal.
When I was on Risperdal, I met an art collector, and he loaned me several copies of the magazine "Raw Vision". It's on Outsider artists. It was just such a relief to see people who were making art like me. Eventually, I started wanting to be like the real artists and less like the Outsider artists. I wanted to please the people looking at my artwork. I started drawing from real life. I started using photographs of my own face for facial expressions. On the one hand, I was making art that looked like what I thought real art looked like, on the other hand the process was very slow and painstaking.
I was starting to work in oil paints, and there was a loss of pleasure, but I was feeling more like a real artist. Then I made a conscious decision to go back to my methodology under Risperdal, which is you take a blank piece of paper and a pencil and you just draw from your imagination. "The Beginning of Time" is one example. I'm on Seroquel, and I've had 7 years of being an artist, and I just take a blank piece of paper, and draw and use Cray-Pas, which is the best medium. My use of color and blending color, and indistinct space is much better. I tolerate ambiguity.
Schizophrenics have the hardest time with ambiguity. In other words, we need yes and no; black and white. We need a high degree of certainty in our lives, and if we don't have it we're going to get sick. I need a lot of sameness. My husband, Mike, knows that the sicker I get, the less I'm able to think in abstract terms. He'll say something like: "That guy's ship sailed in" when talking about someone at work, and I'll say: "Why are you talking about ships now," not understanding that it's a metaphor. When I'm sicker, I don't understand metaphors.
Genetics triggered my illness. I've got a schizophrenic uncle and aunt, both on my father's side. My father's a transplant surgeon. He's brilliant. He gives people new organs, but his brother is in a veterans' home. My aunt is schizoaffective; she's more like me. She worked in a laundry.
Mike and I talk about what we call "the myth of recovery." Some social workers and maybe some doctors are optimistic that these new drugs can help people go back to work or school. They think that recovery ends some place where patients are integrated somewhat into society. We call this a myth because there are no stories about the breakdowns that the pressures that going back to school or work cause, and I see this. Mike, who has worked in the health care industry, sees this, too.
In "Noble Vikings" I was on Risperdal. It shows the invention of water. Every bit of space is covered, and it's all very flat and crowded. There are no 3-D perspectives of reality. "The Beginning of Time" shows a maturing artist; it's very atmospheric and more ambiguous. I'm more comfortable with the medium and able to use a sophisticated theory like contrast. I did a study of light and dark contrasts. I learned it from studying books on art and looking at what other artists did. It shows best how I've matured. I used an artist's drawing of a turtle from a book for reference, so that I could better have a "realistic" -looking turtle.
I cannot socialize. This Christmas, I almost had to leave the dinner table with my family because the amount of emotional energy was so high, and I was so sensitive to it. Schizophrenia makes you so sensitive [that] you can't filter stimuli. Luckily, Mike is a homebody. He's an artist, and he loves to read. His lifestyle and mine work well together. I am very fortunate.
As told to Deeanna Franklin by Karen Blair.
Posted by dignifyme
at 10:32 PM EST
Updated: Friday, 24 February 2006 8:33 AM EST
