For the last four years I have been involved in various aspects of art and theatre in my high school. I believe that students at my school are fortunate because we have a large school with many opportunities, especially for artists. We have an airbrush studio, woodshop, industrial graphics shop, newspaper, yearbook, and TV staffs, an extensive theatre program, and several levels of drawing, painting, clay and photography. There is also a wide variety of students who participate in these programs. However, I have noticed in the last couple years that the actions of some artists give the others a bad reputation.
For instance, alot of the students in my drawing class and my clay classes have openly admitted to using drugs or drinking underage, and sometimes creating art projects while doing so, which they then turn in for a grade at school. To me, being under the influence of any substance is wrong, and the way I see it, if you can't be under the influence of it at school, then you shouldn't be under the influence of it while you're creating a project for school. Throughout history, famous artists have utilized drugs to aid their creativity, but for the majority of artists such as myself, creativity comes just as easily without these things. A good example of this issue occured when a friend of mine came into our drawing class and showed me a piece that she had been working on. I commented on the unique design and detail of the piece. She then responded, "Yeah, I was high when i made it." This completely demolished my respect for this girl as an artist, let alone as a person in general. I believe that she could have very well done just as good, if not a better job on the piece if she had been sober.
So my question is, do instances like this lead to generalizations and stereotypes such as all artists are drug addicts? And do you think that the media has an influence on such sterotypes?
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I don't think it is quite assumed that an artist does drugs, depending on his work, but generally I think people and the media are not surprised when they do. I think the media creates an environment where it is acceptable for artists to do drugs.
Lots of artists do drugs. Lots of artists, if they are true artists, benefit from it. The problems come when it becomes a crutch. I don't consider using drugs to be wrong. I consider drug abuse wrong, and not everyone who uses abuses. I think it takes a good deal of inteligence to objectively look at something you thought was awsome when you were on drugs and decide if it is good. If it is good, then, esp. with art, I think the ends justify the means.
Artists are more likely to use drugs because drugs are a part of "other" culture. Artists necessarily have a different outlook on the world and drugs and the altered state fit in well with that. You believeing that art is only worthwhile without drugs would be just as bad as one of these druggie artists thinking your art is crap because you don't do drugs.
And now a small list of wonderful artists and pieces done while on drugs or influenced by drugs:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band and Abbey Road - Beatles
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter Thompson
The Grateful Dead
The Ramones
The Doors of Perception - Aldous Huxley
Edgar Allan Poe
Picasso
Van Gogh
Freud
Robert E. Howard
Res ipsa loquitur.
Memento mori, mahalo.