Dealing with depression as an artist

As an artist you will need to develop a thick skin. Regardless of what you do in the art world, whether you compose or paint or sculpt or engage in something more post-human or post-post-post-contemporary, then you will need to be able to formalise your ideas, take criticism, understand people and learn to live with yourself.

I have suffered from depression for a very long time and when I started out as a professional fine artist some 13 years ago, I had no idea what it would feel like to part with a work or to take criticism or even how to cope with the dismissive glances that people would give my work. Cries of "my 3 year old could do that" and the like really hammered into me and I got in a pretty bad way after my first solo exhibition. However there is always an end to any blight of depression. As Winston Churchill said of his depression "It is a black dog which sits in the corner and looks at me".

Being an artist and dealing with negativity when artists are a pretty (very) emotional bunch is difficult at first. I'm not saying nor ever saying that you should stop feeling and sometimes the critique that you get from an uneducated blow in can cut to the quick of a matter or work better than any carefully regarded gallerist opinion.What I am saying is that if you are to feel every comment as a body blow then you will go down hill very quickly and be in a bad way like I was. We all know how artists can get.

What you need to do is basically buck up and get used to it. I can sell a work now and not get that lost limb ache. I can hear a negative comment and discard it after sifting it for useful information. I don't let it get to me because I am used to it. I got used to it and so can you.
The final important thing to remember is that you can always find someone to talk to. Get a different perspective on things and remeber that there is an equal amount of light and dark in life. Peace.

Welcome to the innaugural post on my new Blog Death of Draegath.

In this blog I will make no distinction between art created for tabletops, for computers or for walls or for anything else. Art is art.

 Large desert hill #1 - ork nob included for scale is 4cm bottom of base to shoulder
Note the red iron look to the 'soil' which I created using a first coat of 50% cheap red student paint, 40% brick staining powder from Bunnings and 10% Grog buff proof black ink (amazing stuff) . I then highlighted with gold oxide paint and once dry I rubbed the whole thing with Matisse Flow Transparent Umber (Flow) which made all the colour look natural.

 Large desert hill #1 detail - I wanted it to look like natural strata with vegetation crevices like you would find in real deserts.

 

Large desert hill #2 - this one has a little spring up the top which was my first experiment with fake water - note to self and other, this needs to be recessed into the terrain or it sits on top like pva. Also, there are a few bubbles that came up thru as it was drying from the painted sand beneath.

 

 Large Desert Hill #2 - Detail of pool

Large Desert Hill #2 - detail of little cave in base of hill

I used basically the technique shown on this wonderful website to make the hills, but in a nutshell they are on an mdf base, built up first with high density foam and cork tile from Ikea, glued down with pva glue. When dry I filled it in with plaster of paris, waited again til dry then filled and covered further with a 50/50 mix of sand and pva glue. The rest of the rock and sand placement is as per the link. I'm looking forward to gaming on this puppy!