The Classic Artist's Dilemma

There's something almost every artist I know goes through, and my own dealings with it have gotten me to where I am today.

It's the classic artist's dilemma: No, not balancing creativity and finance, but that's a pretty classic one, too. I'm talking about the dilemma of: Do you need to be in a bad place to make good art?

The answer, of course, is no, but looking back, the 3 moths of my own art I like the best were also the 3 worst months I've ever had. (Kind of. They were the 3 worst months I had in which I still got stuff done. At one point, when you get to be too bad, you don't make art anymore. That's the real worst place to be.)

It's always strange for me to listen back to my own music. Just as how all music holds with it memories and emotions, my own music has that much more weight to it. Just as with other music, I associate memories of emotions that stick most to my experience of listening to it, but with my own, I feel the struggles and the pains that came with the process of writing. And sometimes those pains come with triumphs in completing said composition, and sometimes, they only come with the tears that came at the end, seeing my emotion -- more often than not in the 3 months I'm referring to, pain -- played and articulated so perfectly by another musician.

It's one thing when art takes you on an emotional roller coaster. It's another entirely when it takes you on a roller coaster that you built.

When I listen to these pieces -- I have two in particular in mind, I want to be back in that place of artistic success. But I remember with it the emotional failures.

I know that you don't need to be in a bad place to make good art, but we wouldn't all worry about it if it didn't at least help.

I think I'd rather be in a good place and help good art not made by me.

But more than anything, I'd just rather be in a good place.