This week I’m bringing a question that reared it’s head again this week. It’s the idea that suffering is the source of our best art. And the fear that goes with it – the reluctance to heal, to process and to move on – in case our edge goes with it.

Because if it’s true that the best work comes from the most painful places, what happens if you stop hurting? What if healing makes you lose the thing that made the work matter?

It’s a conversation about the tortured artist myth.

Why it’s persisted for centuries, what neuroscience actually tells us about trauma and creativity and whether it’s possible to park the painful material somewhere you can still reach it, without having to live there to access it.

Lyndon does his best to be supportive and understanding, but unfortunately gives-in to his usual intrusive thoughts!

And we both ponder whether artists can actually afford therapy.

You might want to listen if:

• You wonder whether healing and creative legitimacy can coexist, or whether you have to choose

• You’ve caught yourself thinking that an artist with an easy life might have nothing real to say

• You’re carrying something ongoing – not a wound from the past, but one that keeps reopening – and you’re trying to make art out of it

Pain In The Arts is a weekly podcast about the reality of creative life. Hosted by Breallyn and Lyndon Wesley. One of them never knows the topic until recording begins.

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Theme music by Lyndon Wesley

Produced on Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country.

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