“I just thought making movies was something done by geniuses, and I was very clear that I wasn’t one of those.” Jane Campion

When “The Artist’s Way” author and creativity coach Julia Cameron has asked people to list ten traits they think artists have, their responses have included: “Artists are broke,” “Artists are crazy,” “Artists are drug-addicted” and “Artists are drunk.”

Other myths and ideas about being an artist:

“Artists must be poor and sacrifice their well-being for their art.”

“Artists should accept the solitary life and find solutions on their own.”

“You can’t be a mother and a successful artist.”

“Artists are right-brained and aren’t very good at left-brain stuff like running a business.”

As creative people, even after achieving some recognition for our talents, we can experience self-critical thoughts and insecurity, such as impostor feelings – sometimes based on these kinds of myths we have picked up about creative “genius” or artists.

Director, writer and producer Jane Campion, praised for “The Piano” and other films, once commented, “I never have had the confidence to approach film making straight on. I just thought it was something done by geniuses, and I was very clear that I wasn’t one of those.”

“It was just a story I wanted to tell. Writing it was an expression of my own coming out. Getting it out there was willpower, feeling this is a universal story about identity and it has to be told.”

Writer and director Dee Rees is referring to her movie “Pariah” – about a lesbian teenager struggling to keep her sexuality a secret from her family.

A review article explains that the lead character Alike (pronounced Ah-LEE-kah) “lives comfortably with both parents and a younger sister… gets great grades in school and is an avid writer.

“And though there are hints that Alike’s burgeoning sexuality might make her the target of derision or violence from men in her neighborhood, this isn’t a movie about a girl being punished for her sexuality, but about self-discovery even within a difficult context.”

Envy is an insult to oneself.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Envy is human nature.
Monica Bellucci

A simple dictionary definition of envy is “a feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to another’s advantages, success, possessions, etc.”

In this famous shot of Sophia Loren (left) and Jayne Mansfield at a Beverly Hills restaurant in 1957, Loren may or may not be feeling envy – but I like the photo.

Reportedly, Mansfield’s extravagant cleavage was a publicity stunt intended to deflect attention from Sophia Loren during a dinner party in Loren’s honor.

Envy can be an insidious feeling, with a collection of attitudes and beliefs that impact our creative energy and motivation.

According to a Psych Central entry (by Renée Grinnell), catharsis means “the first full realization and expression of emotions surrounding significant occurrences in one’s past; emotional release.”

So how does that relate to creative expression?

On his blog Screenwriting from Iowa, Scott W. Smith includes this interesting quote on the topic:

“Robert McKee, in his excellent book Story, defines the goal of the screenwriter as ‘a good story well told.’ A story must also be the vehicle for an emotion. The audience wants to be moved. Those elements that contribute to an emotional experience are valuable: those that aren’t are extraneous and probably dispensable.

“According to Aristotle, ‘catharsis’ (emotional and spiritual cleaning) is the goal of tragic drama and is produced by the strong emotion of ‘pity and terror.’ But why do we need cleaning, and what impurities—and why do we need such extreme emotion to burn them away?

Among other creative works, Diablo Cody wrote a couple of my favorite films: Juno, and Jennifer’s Body, and the richly dramatic and comedic – and unfortunately canceled – TV series United States of Tara, executive produced by Steven Spielberg and starring Toni Collette.

Her script for  Juno (2007) earned her an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

In some interviews and her own writing before the Oscar win, she talked about her perspectives on creative expression, on being an artist, and keeping her work real.

In his new course Your Best Life in the Arts, creativity coach Eric Maisel, PhD promises to provide “real answers to the challenges that confront you” as a creative person.

Below are excerpts from summaries of the second seven topics of the course, running for 14 Mondays starting October 3. For each topic, I have added some related comments and references such as articles. But first, read Eric Maisel on Your Life in the Arts – Part 1 (with a video interview with Dr. Maisel) if you haven’t already.

Week 10. The Addiction Key
Creative people squarely fall into the category of people at high risk for addiction, whether it’s a classic addiction to alcohol or drugs or one of the new distraction addictions involving email and the Internet. Learn why you are at greater risk than the next person—and what you can do to minimize those risks…

Photo: Beethoven reportedly drank wine about as often as he wrote music, and was an alcoholic or at least a problem-drinker.

Many gifted and creative people throughout history have used or abused substances, or engaged in self-limiting behavior. Here are a couple of many articles on the topic…

What do you do when your primary creative endeavor does not support you enough emotionally or financially?

What if you aren’t getting the acting jobs you want, or the writing assignments, or not enough people buy your paintings?

Psychologist and creativity coach, Eric Maisel, PhD warns in his book Mastering Creative Anxiety that this can have emotional consequences: “We get anxious because we fear failing, because we fear disappointing ourselves, because the work can be extremely hard, because the marketplace may criticize us and reject us.”

One of the enduring ideas about creative expression is that it comes from sparks of inspiration out of our unconscious, breaking through to awareness.

A related idea is that creative “geniuses” like Mozart freely “channel” finished or almost finished notable work, that mere mortals like the rest of us can’t possibly hope to do.

But New York Times op-ed writer David Brooks has pointed out, “His early compositions were nothing special. They were pastiches of other people’s work. Mozart was a good musician at an early age, but he would not stand out among today’s top child-performers.”

From my post Grit and perseverance mean more than talent and high aptitude.

[Brooks is also quoted in my earlier post Practice, Practice, Practice.]

Artists themselves may promote myths.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (photo; 1772–1834) is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan. He claimed in a preface to the latter, that the poem came to him in a dream during a nap, and he simply wrote down the entire finished work.

“I want to do wardrobe. I want to do hair. I want to do makeup. I want to do writing. I want to do directing. And I want to do producing. I want to do all of it. I like it.“ Abigail Breslin

Breslin shares that kind of ambitious passion with many other people blessed – and challenged – with multiple creative talents.

Her films include Signs (at age 5), Little Miss Sunshine, Nim’s Island, and Zombieland. Her credits on the movie database imdb.com are still for acting – but then, she is only 15 and has plenty of time to develop her other interests.

The Wikipedia List of people who have been called “polymaths” has a fascinating variety of names throughout history, including, of course Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) – “the prototype of the universal genius, the ‘Renaissance man’… a prodigious polymath.”

In his post That’s DR. Winnie to you: A New Child Star Stereotype, creativity researcher James C. Kaufman, Ph.D. writes about a number of well-known child stars, now grown up, who have explored talents outside of acting.

He writes: “One of the research topics in creativity that has always fascinated me has been creative polymathy – the ability to be creative in more than one domain.”

“When you begin to act on your creativity, what you find inside may be more valuable than what you produce for the external world.”

That quote from the book “Claiming Your Creative Self” by Eileen M. Clegg is a reminder that creativity is an exploration of our psyche, our inner selves; it isn’t just about being identified as an “artist” producing a “work of art.”

In “The Woman’s Book of Creativity” author C Diane Ealy, Ph.D. notes she’s been listening to women talk about their creative process for years. Her comments could of course also apply to us men.