The Ecstasy of Artistry
Is it drug-induced inspiration or a fast track to addiction?
In her 2010 memoir Just Kids, Patti Smith recounts, “It was while Robert Mapplethorpe was dropping acid that he realized he was an artist.”
Would the timid photographer have gained the courage to present his atypical work to the New York City art scene without the support of his substance use? Creativity and artistry call upon the senses, and it is no secret that drugs, hallucinogenic or not, heighten them. However, this fact cannot explain the age-old phenomenon of creatives’ use of substances as artistic paraphernalia, just as significant as a paintbrush, sewing needle, pen, or typewriter. However, this tool can reveal a dark side, leading to dependence or possibly addiction that acts as a barrier between the creator and their creations.
Dr. Ben Sessa states that the effects of participating in psychedelic drug experiences include “a general increase in complexity and openness, such that the usual ego-bound restraints that allow humans to accept given preconceived ideas about themselves and the world around them are necessarily challenged.” This relation can explain why American psychiatrist Oscar Janiger conducted a study testing sixty artists’ work both on and off LSD over the course of seven years and had a University of California Irvine art history professor analyze the results. The professor recounted the art created on LSD as “enhanced, with more of a presence of expressionism, sharper colors, and increased syntactical organization.”
If such results are accurate, can psychedelics be compared to that of a performance-enhancing drug like steroids for athletes? Are those who choose to take the sober route at a creative disadvantage? While artists who consume drugs are scientifically likely to find inspiration from their high, they are also biologically susceptible to health complications from regularly abusing drugs.
Those who seek out drugs to experience life and its mysteries through a fantastical lens are often those who already possess this imagination but yearn to intensify it. This superpower results in heightened sensitivity to one’s surroundings and experiences, which leads to sensory overload. Such observational skills are recorded as identifiers of neurodivergence. Several studies have found that bipolar disorder is a common diagnosis for creatives. Neuroscientist and neuropsychiatrist Nancy Andreason studied creative writers for 15 years, finding that 37 percent of her subjects were depressed, 43 percent manic, and 30 percent alcoholics. The control group possessed a mere 7 percent average of such diagnoses.
As interpreted by Danielle Knafo in her 2008 article, The Senses Grow Skilled in Their Craving: Thoughts on Creativity and Addiction, “Substances are therefore employed by artists... to both increase and decrease sensitivity.” Knafo alludes to the fact that vices artists use to soothe their anguish often become the very source of said turmoil. From here, artists fall into the danger of forming habits, possibly becoming dependent or addicted. Knafo discusses the difference between writers like E.B. White, who recounted, “I always treat myself to a nice dry martini. Just one to give me the courage to get started. After that, I am on my own.” Famous artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jackson Pollock, and Jimi Hendrix are just a select few who lost their lives to addiction. As most others know, the amount of known artists who passed from addiction showcases only a small portion of a community-wide issue.
Photo by Timothy Cheng. © The photographer.
I interviewed two subjects who used drugs while working in creative industries beginning at the end of the 20th century. The first, “C,” has worked closely in the art, fashion, and literary industries with leaders like Phoebe Philo and Rei Kawakubo. The second, “A,” worked in the industry for decades with Vivienne Westwood and founded a non-profit for Ukrainian designers. C’s and A’s comparable outlooks on the role of drugs in creativity and disparate consumption habits prove the different functions that substances can serve, depending on the user’s makeup.
While both interviewees have consumed psychedelic drugs, their relationships to substances diverge. C recounted trying LSD for the first time in 1968, when she was just thirteen years old, after admiring the hippie movement. She swore never to do it again but tried it again about a year later. While C can admit that substance use is “certainly associated with creative thought,” she never credited drugs for her creativity beyond dropping acid with her friends in high school and “embroider[ing] patterns on our boyfriend’s jeans. Those guys looked so great.” C also reminisced on American artists like the Grateful Dead, who purportedly relied on a “lifestyle of exploration and out-of-body experiences.” While LSD is not chemically addicting, it's habit-forming capabilities are reflected in many fan-favorite songs like “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” While recounting the extreme and regular use of substances, C stated: “You have got to be someone that’s very interested in taking risks.”
Such risk-taking most certainly translated from their lifestyle practices to their alternative approach to work. A divulged the risks that those in the creative scene must take to set their collections apart. A described how, when designing, “you are trying to dream while you’re awake ... and make this whole collection. And it is so hard... you don’t want to be known as this person who’s ripping someone off, so you are really pressured to create something so different. That’s surreal.” Working around the clock, party culture, and beauty standards have led A to regular use of drugs within her work.
Psychology shows that psychedelic drug use can expand creativity. Studies have also proven that artists who employ these methods as a form of creative support are biologically prone to have addictive personalities. What this discourse has yet to mention is the eventual diminishment of imagination and achievement as habits of using drugs become more consistent. Addicts become prisoners to their dependence, forcing their art on the back burner. While creativity itself can be regarded as an addiction, drug addiction can extinguish the inventive fire that every artist possesses. Such struggle is the anomaly that drug consumption provides, forcing the user to choose between their craft and the very vice that they employed to fortify it.
About one year ago, I experimented with MDMA. My boyfriend at the time, who works in the fashion industry, suggested we take it together and listen to techno music in Queens. Now, as a result, I am in intensive trauma therapy and have presumably been diagnosed with HPPD, or Hyper Persisting Perception Disorder. I suffer from daily flare-ups of anxiety, dizziness, dissociation, and sometimes auditory and visual hallucinations.
To prevent this article from morphing into an anti-drug campaign, I have intentionally excluded recommendations against substance consumption, mentions of laced synthetics in today’s drug market, and all of the other sermonizing points. Research proves that substance use can contribute to the artistic process and momentarily ease a struggling artist’s pain. However, one year after experiencing a nightmarish, drug-induced trauma from a decision that was meant to be a spontaneous effort to “feel music differently,” I feel an urgent need to share how I’ve coped with my experience. Everyone finds peace in their own way, But this is how I’ve learned to harness my ecstasy trauma and turn it into artistry.
Every month or two, I return to the very location in Queens where I experienced my “bad trip.” I repeat the evening almost identically. I listen to similar music in the same space, dressed in a similar black ensemble. I practice such a routine, however, substance-free. Each visit equips me with more confidence to dance however I please in a room full of strangers, the adrenaline to stay energized for hours on end, and a new acute sensitivity and openness to music.
My ritual afterward often consists of a long hot shower followed by painting or writing while listening to Fleetwood Mac and Cat Stevens. Through this endurance and faith in myself, I have realized my innate mental capacity to discover my creativity without the crutch of a tab, pill, or drink.