The Artistic Personality

Photo Credit: Emre Ergin via Compfight

I wanted to call attention to a fascinating article from my bud, Ed featured at Prodigal Magazine.

Launching from a tumultuous topic that men should “bring in the bacon” Ed talks about cultural constructs, expectations, and his upcoming fatherhood. He also touches on something I’d like to highlight here today. That is, the nature of the artistic personality type. Creatives.

Recently, I watched the season finale of the drama series MADMEN. Megan is married to wealthy ad man Don Draper. She pursues a career as an actress for the love of it. She doesn’t need the money, unlike many of her aspiring thesbian friends. Still, failure is difficult to handle for her.

Whether the stakes are one’s livelihood or one’s artistic ambitions an artist desires to succeed. This time, Megan’s mother rues the fact that Megan has an artistic temperament but not the artistic talent…

It was an intriguing comment. When considered it has big implications on many creative types. It’s about temperament. For who else is this true? I wondered.

But maybe this insight from the artist’s mother doesn’t reveal the whole story…maybe the talents are just unidentified or underperforming at the moment. Maybe the niche hasn’t been discovered or one hasn’t found “the zone” for their artistic endeavors. All the angst that comes with that is immense. Finding our way as creatives is the “epic hero journey” (a la Steven Pressfield) that involves mostly struggle.

Do you have “the artistic temperament”? 

What has it cost you?