“apart from the wheel, opium is man’s only discovery.”, Picasso.
“Do you still smoke?” he asked Cocteau.
“No, I don’t, and I regret it as much as you do,” Cocteau replied.
“Opium promotes benevolence,” Picasso sighed, wistfully.
From the depths of addiction comes the greatest work.
I remember the moment art dragged me in.
Brett Whiteley – American Dream.
I am no art expert. I don’t know a Monet from a Manet.
Hyperbole. Water Lilies at the Complesso del Vittoriano was worth the visit alone.
I would look at art and wonder how the artist could brilliantly capture imagery. It seemed impossible to me. I can’t draw a stick figure.
If it is self-explanatory, I will get it.
Some art is straightforward in its message.
I love some art, like Warhol or Kass, but I don’t know why.
Braque and Picasso just make me happy but they miss me on any real level.
I don’t even remember where I was when I saw American Dream. It was just one panel. There are eighteen altogether.
I remember looking at it and thinking, another artwork that looks amazing. No idea what it means. I stood for a while to take it in.
Every time I went to walk away, I stopped. Something was happening on the edges of the brain. Something working.
I spent forever looking at Whiteley’s piece. I walked away with a profound realisation that the message art delivers extends beyond what you think you understand.
I started reading about Whiteley.
It dawned on me that there is a tortured soul in all the art I love.
There is something honest and raw about artistic expression from those deep in the grip of addiction.
Bukowski and Kerouac were alcoholics. Their best work came from affliction.
Hunter S. Thompson. A genius who used everything.
“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”
Hunter S. Thompson
Junk seems to produce the best work. Whiteley, Burroughs, Sixx, and Cobain.
Picasso loved opium. He found his good friend and artist Wiegels hanging from the ceiling after a psychotic episode of hash and junk.
Hemmingway, Kesey, Huxley, Fitzgerald. I am just listing them now. I could go on forever.
What is it about addiction that inspires genius?
Never forget. Drugs are bad.
“I don’t spot junk neighbourhoods by the way they look, but by the feel, somewhat the same process by which a dowser locates hidden water. I am walking along and suddenly the junk in my cells moves and twitches like the dowsers wand: ‘Junk here!”
William S. Burroughs
