Detail of Gertrude Stein by Pablo Picasso 1905-6; © 2016 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Artists are absorbed by their work and never take time off. They are impulsive and eccentric people. They work only in isolation and like to be alone to ponder the meaning of life.
From the problematic image of the artist as a mad genius, to stereotypes of promiscuity, there are many clichés that persist when it comes to definitions of artistic and creative personalities.
There are even claims that there is a link between creativity and the undesirable personality traits displayed by psychopaths, through shared characteristics like rule breaking and taking risks.
Read: Creatives share traits with psychopaths
Truth, or cliché? It’s time for the artists to respond themselves. So to put these traits to the test, we asked Australian creatives about their own personalities and their experience working with other creative people.
Myth 1: Artists are introverted
The image of the artist as a loner has its foundation in the nature of the work.
‘Solitude is an important part of creative practice, simply because you need the time and space to work through things,’ comments emerging curator Sabrina Sokalik.
But Sokalik points out that while introversion is inevitably part of creativity there is a strange paradox that also pushes artists outwards to seek audiences and communication.
‘I’ve been thinking about this recently with the coverage in mainstream media about the recent deaths of David Bowie and Prince. I thought it was interesting, in some of the commentary about their lives, where the descriptions seemed similar.
‘There’s this strange paradigm where these really amazingly creative people tend to work, in which they seem to be extroverts, where they seem like these larger than life characters. But then also it can be difficult to actually know them. They have these very segregated and private parts of their life.’
With an increasing trend towards collaboration, particularly in digital and technological focused art forms, the idea that artists are introverted may be outdated.
Read: Why collaboration is essential for creativity
‘I really think that image has been broken down in the past few years as the tools for creative work are becoming more widely available and it’s becoming less of a stigma to be an artist or a creator as a meaningful way to make a living,’ said Founding Director of Jacky Winter Group, Jeremy Wortsman.
As Sydney artist Kevina-Jo Smith says of her own work, ‘You have to be versatile. You do need to be able to collaborate and think and work as a team, as well as have your own head space and making time. My practice definitely benefits from both of those extremes.’
Myth 2: Artists don’t care about money
We know creatives are intrinsically driven and derive much of their satisfaction from their creative work. But there are other motivators. Artists, too, need to eat.
Read: The definitive arts salary survey
For illustrator Jeffrey Phillips, success and what motivates his work is diverse and difficult to pin down.
‘I will draw regardless of whether it is for a client or for myself because I love to do so. But I have also completed a huge amount of work at the behest of various clients, none of which I would have created if I wasn’t being paid to do so,’ said Phillips.
‘A friend once told me that a hamster running on a wheel never gets the cheese, but at the end of the day it has really strong legs. I define success across a myriad of things like personal fulfillment, monetary goals, cheese, recognition and happiness.’
Phillips raises a key consideration that perhaps some psychologists overlook: many artists work at the threshold of commercial and fine arts in Australia out of a necessity to earn a living. Paid work means swapping the personal for the professional and often taking on a brief from a client. This necessarily shifts the motivation that may inspire their individual creative work, to one of financial necessity. Or as Franz Kafka’s father called it, the ‘bread job.’
Myth 3: Artists are thin-skinned
Artists invest so much of themselves in their creative work. Perhaps that’s why they tend to respond angrily when their work is criticised.
But rather than seeing artists as unusually sensitive to attack, Wortsman suggests artists are working in a particularly difficult environment.
‘It’s definitely a cliché: the sensitive artist, the precious illustrator, or the controlling photographer. But there is a reality to that. Some artists are more sensitive than others. I don’t think it is different from any other job except that when people are critiquing you it can be very difficult not to take that personally,’ said Wortsman.
As someone who introduces artists, designers, illustrators, and other creative workers to clients for a living, Wortsman has experience negotiating the interesting border of commercial and fine arts. He offers a different perspective on how the kind of sensitivity he sees may be specific to Australia.
‘There isn’t a lot of commercial art training in Australia, so you have a lot of people who come from a fine art background who transition to commercial art. Because of this training, there’s a disconnect between “yes, I am making art for myself, finding my own kind of vision” and “I’m making art for somebody else according to their brief, through my own filter.” When those kinds of things get muddied up, it can be hard to separate the emotion out of the job.’
Myth 4: Artists must be eccentric geniuses
In The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas the author writes, ‘I may say that only three times in my life have I met a genius and each time a bell within me rang and I was not mistaken, and I may say in each case it was before there was any general recognition of the quality of genius in them. The three geniuses of whom I wish to speak are Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso and Alfred Whitehead.’
The joke of course, is on the reader. The ‘autobiography’ is written by Stein and in professing her own genius she is merely poking fun at the myth of creative genius (though not, perhaps, the eccentricity part of the equation).
The myth of eccentric genius is one often embraced and even promoted by artists themselves; it can act as nothing more than an excuse for bad behavior.
Read: Bullying in the arts is a real problem
But it’s an idea that is very culturally determined and seems to be dominated by dead white males in individualistic societies.
‘I’m very sceptical of the idea of the creative genius,’ said Sokalik.
‘I think there are certain people who will always be important artists because they do something that is particularly important for its time, they represent a cultural zeitgeist, they say something important about the world and their place in it at that time. But I do think everyone still has those creative impulses, it’s just that in our society we don’t really allow much space for that because art isn’t seen to have a clear utilitarian purpose.’
As Sokalik points out, access to creative output is itself stimulated by a question of privilege. ‘Are artists eccentric people?’ and making this link between queer politics and being eccentric and being creative, I think those eccentricities are far more political than people give credit.’
Myth 5: Artists like breaking the rules.
The eccentricities of creativity can result in an image of the artist as a rule breaker. But this image often results because many artists, writers and the plethora of creative people in the world see their art as a push back against normative behaviour.
But few artists set out to be contrary. Rather they bring new and creative ways of seeing what is around them and this leads to them to question the status quo.
‘Artists certainly are people who are very sensitive to power structures and what normative behaviour is and they are inclined towards pushing up against that in one way or another whether it is visualising it through those eccentricities, or risk taking,’ said Sokalik.
Smith said the perception of artists as rule breakers was a result of their drive to take a moral or social position through their work.
‘Most artists I know are actually just hard workers, doing something they believe is important. I definitely feel an obligation to create awareness, which sometimes makes me seem a little crazy or extreme.‘
