Where is the line between insanity and creativity?...ha, who can answer that?...I wouldn’t ask an insane person and I certainly wouldn’t ask a creative person...but it’s probably less than you think...probably...it’s a fine line and it’s hard to see sometimes...I don’t think one can be creative without a little eccentricity, but eccentricity is far different than being certifiably insane...at least I’ve been told...artists and writers have always been looked on as being ‘different’ and surely there has been more than one of these creators who has taken advantage of perceptions...I know as being an artist and writer, I’ve done so...it especially comes in handy when you’re around some damn annoying people...if people say I dress a little funny, or I’m moody, or my yard is not one that would make the monthly gardening magazine, it may be looked at negatively by certain folks...but if someone were to mention, “He’s an artist”, then many people will half-smile and say something like “Oh…”, thinking you must be half-crazy or ‘touched’...they will sometimes give you a free pass so to speak, as if they could not expect you to behave like anyone ‘normal’...usually if I am introduced to someone as an artist, I usually get a favorable reaction...they usually ask what kind of art you do and they have a daughter or grandson that’s ‘really good’...you don’t get the same reaction being introduced as an insurance salesman, or an undertaker, although I admit both are necessary and important at certain times...God, people hate insurance men, but I think the undertaker might be interesting to talk to...even when I get introduced as a writer, people will ask what I write...my usual response is ‘crap’...which always gets a laugh...I’d laugh too if it wasn’t so true...ask my publishers if you don’t believe me...of course there are some creative people who crossed the line and went over the edge; Van Gogh for one; Hemingway maybe, but I think they were both more than half-crazy...I mean cutting off your own ear...whoa...there are a lot of insane people who don’t have no creativity at all, and not all creative people are insane, so there’s that.
It takes a special individual to take up a profession where it is difficult to become successful, and even more difficult to carve out a living doing either...painting, poetry, whatever...you live for your art, you starve for your art, and a lot of times you die for your art...selling even a small painting, or seeing a few of your written lines in a magazine though can sustain one through the meager periods that are frequent...I know from personal experience...I once knew a girl in high school, who wore nothing but black clothes...I mean everything was black...this was before the whole Goth look ever started...she wore black she said because she was a ‘serious’ artist...I was ok with that...we dated for a while, and almost all my friends wondered why I would date a ‘kook’ like her...she wasn’t a ‘kook’...she was just a little uh...different...she just wanted to stake out her territory, no different than the girls who wore their cheerleader uniforms to class, or the boys who wore their football jersey tops...being an artist, I guess she wanted to stand out...I don’t know what became of her, maybe now she is famous, or maybe she is a cashier at a supermarket...I wonder if she ever thinks of me.
