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.