I am schizophrenic. And since I first started getting diagnoses, there has never been room in the mental health closet for me. It wears on me in a noticeable way, making the alternate name for the classification, salient syndrome, that much more fitting.
I am an artist. But only after years of being a traveler, experiencing the symptoms of homelessness. I have always been an artist but being a traveler is limiting in what you can have as you'll have to carry it. My life has been just as atypical or abnormal as I am, and any art is merely a consequence or result of that. I like things aged, dingy, unclean. I like them worn and haggard. I cannot help but to distress almost everything for this reason. I don't know if the symbolism reads through, or not.
There are a lot of great and inspiring artists in the world. And I'm sure many of them are mentally ill. I am just another one of them. No artist is probably normal, I'd imagine. That sight comes with a knowing that will twist you in some way. Maybe there are art forms that don't require you to be broken somehow, but for the most part, transmuting pain, ugliness and decay, into beauty and elegance, requires one to be aware of all of these things on a deeper level. To trigger a reaction within others, you've got to relate to them first. Or they've got to relate to you, anyway.
But
How can you not relate to any artist, as vulnerable as they are in their moment of expression, as raw as ever. We've all been there. I'm not sure I'm broken really. Just that I was given a kaleidoscope eye upgrade with which to view the world.
❤️
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