An artistic state of mind

DARA HEALY

HE WOULD walk down the street barefoot and break into a big smile whenever he saw me coming towards him as I was heading back to school.

No, this is not my personal Lolita story (Vladimir Nabokov’s often dramatised story about a grown man who lusts after a young girl). It is a memory about one of the artists that I respectfully called “uncle.” The point of the memory is the fact that this artist was strange enough to walk on the dirty city streets without shoes. The other point is that while I thought it was odd, I accepted the behaviour as part of his being a creative spirit.

Growing up within a creative milieu made me tolerant of eccentricity. Indeed, it would be fair to say that in my world “weirdness” was considered quite normal. It does not mean I always agreed, it just felt like everyone else seemed unfazed by unpredictable or volatile behaviour.

So, there are stories about directors who curse one minute and reason the next, or actors who are almost completely inarticulate in real life, but can move you to tears with their interpretation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Recently I have been questioning the “normalcy” of it all. Apparently my musings are not that original.

In 1931, out of some 800 interviews with creative geniuses “only a small minority were found to be free of any mental health issues.” Artists like Vincent Van Gogh, Beethoven and Norwegian Edvard Munch, known for the painting “The Scream,” all struggled with mental health challenges.

In 2013, researchers in Sweden determined that “being an author was specifically associated with increased likelihood of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, unipolar depression, anxiety disorders, substance abuse, and suicide.”

And last year, the Zebra One Gallery in London hosted an exhibition of works by artists who explored mental health through their work, such as Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali and Kim Noble. Noble is said to have about 20 different personalities; 14 of them are artists.

In the Caribbean, dialogue about mental health seems to be moving beyond the simplistic “mad people” or “crazy artists,” with increasing efforts to document and analyse this phenomenon. In 2014, Global Voices, an online publication, noted that “Jamaican blogger Bianca Welds started a project asking her compatriots to share their experiences with mental illness as a way of attacking the stigma attached to it.”

Our own Ministry of Health acknowledges that mental illness “is a serious and growing problem in Trinidad and Tobago.” It is an issue that extends to post-partum depression, anxiety, and uncontrolled anger. Increasingly, we are witnessing instances of young people killing themselves, being anxious over exams, family problems or relationship challenges.

The Trini tendency to laugh at personal quirks also would not encourage someone to seek help without feeling stigmatised. Statements like “you bipolar or what?” or “you take your medication today?” sadly trivialise the subject. Further, as one writer points out, “many of the Caribbean asylums established in the mid-1800s – more like prisons than places of refuge – still operate today. It’s here where many sick people are locked away and isolated from the rest of society, so the general public doesn’t have to confront the issue of mental illness.”

In the apparent absence of a national policy on mental health, citizens have spearheaded their own initiatives. YANA, You Are Not Alone TT, is one Facebook group with the objective of providing a “safe space” for people to share their stories and devise solutions.

But it is not enough. Just this week, our artistic community had to deal with a young man threatening the life of one of our elders. This is now the third incident that I am aware of concerning this person and it appears his behaviour is escalating. The response thus far seems to be whispered expressions of alarm and advice to avoid him. But clearly, there needs to be a social intervention and medical solution. Unfortunately, our society lacks insurance schemes, loans, housing or other social structures designed for artists.

Why develop solutions for artists? The creative mind interprets the world like no other. Artists treat with challenges through their art, resulting in an internalisation of their insecurities. It is therefore important to understand their vulnerability, before more volatile behaviour surfaces.

Is it a comment on our times that artistic eccentricity is no longer about someone deciding to walk barefoot on the dirty city streets? Perhaps. I miss my barefoot uncle. At least he represented the type of eccentricity I understand.

Dara Healy is a performance artist and founder of the NGO, the Indigenous Creative Arts Network – ICAN