illness and chemical muses

When I was an art student, some of the kids in my classes resorted to drugs for inspiration when they were stuck on a project. Their work usually ended up looking pretty great - much better than the crap I tossed out when *I* was uninspired. But I always felt a little disappointed in someone's work when I found out that the idea came to them during an acid trip, or through some other form of chemical, artificial enlightenment. I felt like it was false; like a hollow cheat without any REAL substance behind it.

I think I read once that TMNT were thought up by a group of drunk guys hanging out and eating pizza. And I've noticed over the years that many great ideas for things are claimed to have been thought up "while having some drinks with friends."

I'm not a huge fan of getting drunk (let alone stoned, fried, etc), but one of my art professors pointed out once that he thought I did my best work while I was sick. Every time I came into class complaining about how I'd suffered through the project with a fever and chills, I ended up with an A. Not out of pity, but because my work was actually REALLY GOOD.

I was listening to an audio book and doing sudoku the other day and thinking about how funny it is that I'm always trying to do two (or more) things at once, when I had a little epiphany. My work was better when I was sick because I didn't have the energy to be distracted. It took everything I had just to finish my piece; there was no way I could give any of my attention away to a movie, day dream, phone call, or visiting friend. It was just me, and whatever I happened to be working on.

I imagine that someone who's inebriated would be in a similar situation. Couple that with a creative mind and/or a few vivid hallucinations, and BAM! You have some excellent art work.

I still kind of feel like doing acid or another form of hallucinogen is cheating, at least a little, because you should be learning to tap into that creativity WITHOUT forcing it chemically. But even though I'm not that interested in getting wasted (even for art's sake), at least now I've come to the realization that art created by way of MJ, LSD, PCP, MDMA, or even PBR is still art. It's still coming from inside the artist, just like my art comes from me when I slow down enough to give it time to come out. I mean, not EVERY drug-addled hooligan can produce successful works of art - it takes a very special kind of drug-addled hooligan for that. It takes a drug-addled artist.

Please don't misunderstand this to mean that I'm condoning this sort of creatively-dependent self-medication; all I'm saying is that I've decided to make a conscious effort to not dismiss the work of drug users as artificial, merely because it was created using a tool that I find unhealthy. That doesn't mean I'll want to be like, BFF with them, but if art is good, it's good.