Rudder: Chaos, Creativity and the Black Dog
Ad industry veteran Gawen Rudder believes the ever-growing list of those in the creative arts who suffered various forms of mental illness is far too long, and yes, depressing.
You know how it is. Copywriters dream of publishing novels and art directors of their paintings hung in galleries.
Acclaimed best sellers and red stickers fulfil the need for serious recognition. Think Peter Carey, Bryce Courtney, Ken Done, Jay Furby, David ‘Nobby’ Nobay and Brett Whiteley – the usual suspects who made the dream a reality.
Meanwhile a myriad of wannabes toil over manuscripts and enter local art shows to prove themselves on a bigger stage. They dream of escaping from the humdrum, shaking off the shackles of everyday, wishing and what-if-ing of a life outside adland. More worthy perhaps – more creative maybe.
Marcel’s ‘Nobby’ – the restless art student turned copywriter, and latter day playwright, poet and painter – talks frankly of feeling more secure in a chaotic environment. Chaos and creativity lived and died with Vincent van Gogh and his acolyte Brett Whiteley. By the time he created his monumental eighteen-panel work ‘Alchemy’ Whiteley had already, “moved from alcohol to more serious mind-altering chemicals” leading to his lonely whisky-and-syringe demise in Room 4 of the Thirroul Beach Motel. Van Gogh’s last days in Arles and Saint-Remy asylum were the most chaotic, turbulent, but productive of his short life. The swirling skies of ‘Starry Night’ and ‘Wheatfield with Crows’ echoed the tormented, and disturbed bipolar artist.
With the release of his bright and optimistic autobiography, Ken Done. A Life Coloured In, the designer-cum-artist has positioned himself as a commercially creative figure. Stung by the decorative T-shirt and tea towel tag, and the scorn poured upon him with Whiteley’s barb, “I’d rather take methadone than Ken Done,” it’s significant that his most critically acclaimed work was created at a time when his life was at its lowest ebb – recovery from radical prostatectomy.
The ever-growing list of those in the creative arts who suffered various forms of mental illness is far too long, and yes, depressing. Mad Men and Here’s to the Crazy Ones, take on new meaning. The ‘father of modern advertising,’ Albert Lasker, is thought to have experienced bipolar disorder as did F. Scott Fitzgerald, whilst depression taunted Ernest Hemingway, and another Whiteley hero, Bob Dylan. Alcohol played its part in the relationship between Fitzgerald and Hemingway, as it does today in agency life.
There were also those whose creativity defined their depression (or vice versa) such as Kurt Cobain, Leonard Cohen, Gustav Mahler, Edvard Munch; and troubled comedians like Woody Allen, Russell Brand, Jim Carey, Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Ruby Wax and Robin Williams.
Outside advertising, that same restlessness was seen in world politics and warfare. Take Franklin D. Roosevelt for example: “If I were starting life again, I am inclined to think I would get into the advertising business in preference to any other.” FDR’s latter-day brother-in-arms Winston Churchill, whilst apparently not giving advertising too much thought, pursued both writing and painting. He did more than pursue the creative arts, he excelled. Some believe it was because of his bipolar disorder – not despite it – that he excelled. When all odds were against Britain, a lesser man might have given up hope. Not Churchill. Not the British bulldog. ‘KBO’ (Keep Buggering On) drove his tenacity.
He wrote because his temperament demanded it. And boy oh boy, did he write. By the age of 26 he had written five books, become the highest-paid journalist in Britain and was paid £250 per month (equivalent to about A$21,000 today) for his coverage of the Boer War. In his lifetime, he penned more words than Shakespeare and Dickens combined, and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953.
His creative-depressive personality meant that writing (or oil painting, which he took up at 41 years of age following his part in the traumatic disasters of the Dardanelles and Gallipoli) was a way of keeping the ‘black dog’ of depression off his back. He wrote to capture that sensation of release that comes from producing over 2,000 words a day, or laying bricks at his Kent home of 40 years, Chartwell.
(In the interests of impartiality, it should be said that the written and oratory skills of Hitler are often compared with those of Churchill. He too dictated (to Rudolf Hess, no less) the two volumes of Mein Kampf. However despite producing hundreds of paintings and postcards his artistic ambitions were never fulfilled.
Unlike the vegetarian, non-smoking teetotaler Das Führer, Churchill was what he termed a ‘maintenance drinker,’ renowned for a steady intake of Johnnie Walker red, Hine cognac and brandy, and his beloved Pol Roger. These, plus St-Ėmilion with dinner, and the occasional martini, kept him fully functional.)
A creative can get caught up in a burst of chaotic activity and mood swings, just as those who use legal or illicit drugs to induce a sense of euphoria. Statistics show that amongst all categories of creativity, artists and writers rank amongst the highest incidence of bipolar disorder, outstripping many other professions. Why? Maybe the manic phase of bipolar disorder infuses them with furious energy and limitless stamina. Like Churchill, they forego sleep, expand their imagination and embrace the out-of-the-box thinking that relishes the challenge of that blank sheet of paper or empty canvas.
Cured of their mental illness and clean of alcohol and chemicals, it is argued that painters and writers would be gutted of their creativity and stripped of the means to realise it. Had their tormented minds been healed, society would be deprived of the beauty and insights the likes of van Gogh and Edgar Allan Poe inspire.
Depression, drugs and alcohol dependence seem to be off the agency agenda, but they loom large just beneath the shiny veneer of the business we love. The unanswered question remains – are they the cause or the result of the chaos that accompanies creativity?
Post Script: Jeff Kennett, the former Premier of Victoria and chairman/ founder of Beyond Blue knows something about our business. After working in the advertising department of Myer and then at Clemenger, he founded KNF Advertising in 1971 and remained a director of the Burwood-based agency for 20 years, before finding that advertising and politics don’t always mix.
Gawen Rudder [right] is principal of The Knowledge Consultancy, Sydney. This article first appeared in Campaign Brief magazine.
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8 Comments
A summation duly noting the creative Black Dog that bites so many of us.
check out http://www.dancingwiththeblackdog.com
Oh yes, that distinguished author Jay Furby. A worthy inclusion alongside the greats.
I suffered from an almost terminal depression during the brief but chaotic reign of a certain ECD at Saatchis in the early 21st century. Fortunately with medication, rest and the care of loved-ones, I made a full recovery and have been able to resurrect my acerbic writing style for the good of humanity, in particular on the Campaign Brief Blog.
I am a senior writer working in a busy agency.
This article seems to suggest that the medication I take to manage my bipolar disorder dampens my ability as a creative. But the truth is it actually allows me to function as a person in the world. Which is priority number one for holding down a job of any kind, and especially a job in an agency.
Is my creative output diminished by lithium? No. And I take real issue with the second last paragraph, which seems to insinuate that proper treatment would have rendered creative giants like Van Gough and Edgar Allen Poe impotent. The fact is they managed their illnesses with drugs anyway, they just weren’t PBS subsidised.
But in agencyland, you don’t want to mention your mental illness. I’ve learned the hard way what advantage that gives you. Nothing, and less than that. That is why this post is anonymous. But the one thing that is a huge amplifying factor when it comes to mental illness and working in advertising is stress.
Whether you’re bipolar, clinically depressed, suffer from anxiety or some other horrible thing, stress only makes it worse. And our industry is terrible when it comes to the stress load it places on its workers. There’s no sense of a duty of care to maintain safe workplaces, with the accepted view being that high pressure and long hours are the price of admission. This will change in time, as millennials start running the shops, and as advertising increasingly has to compete with other industries for the sharpest creative minds.
What is also interesting is that people continue to feel moved to write articles connecting creativity and mental illness that seem to romanticise that link. Apart from hardly breaking new ground, it boggles the mind that people still, today, feel comfortable expressing the idea that improved medicine for mental illness might be depriving the world of works of creative genius. Gimme a break.
This article reaches no conclusion other than a vague rumination on the direction of causality. Big deal. Who cares. There are better questions to ask at the end of this meandering piece – which I enjoyed reading, by the way. Of course it’s interesting. Questions like isn’t it good that people who would not have been able to work in a creative field fifty years ago can now do so thanks to medication, access to treatment and the shifting of attitudes around mental illness? Or that managing the symptoms of mental illness doesn’t actually mean killing that creative energy, but allowing it it be used constructively? Instead this piece wants to wallow in the salacious idea that modern treatments are depriving the world of creative genius. Not true. And not a helpful idea.
Not bad GR – and yep Old CD Guy, I witnessed the full monty of that, and hey No One In Particular, you are not alone in your depression… But in reality, no crunt gives a damn and no agency really wants you to be depressed – they can’t handle the truth…
I worked with really mad men [without any real talent except for maybe bending the truth or playing politics] who actively ran you down if you were under stress or had relationship issues – even a mate at #7 says ‘no room for crazy here’..
In short, I think it’s a fallacy to think mental illness is accepted by AdLand because IMHO they are in fact scared – and rudderless…
I thank ‘No one in particular …’ for his, or her, comments, In particular for shining a light on the serious issue of stress in our business. My article specifically avoided mention of treatments and medications, simply because the topic is well outside my realm of understanding, let alone experience. My intention was to take the seldom-discussed issue of depression in creative advertising out into the open. And for that I am grateful to the writer.
RE No one in particular
When I read the article I certainly didn’t set out to uncover what the article was trying to achieve. I think it’s fair to say he wrote the article as a point of discussion, not some type of accusation.
And by the way, I enjoyed your POV also.
Respectfully.
It’s not just creatives? Do you think I went to film school to make ads and be in a business where you ride a roll a roller coaster of being wanted or not. I have had life without anti-depressants and life with them – I prefer the later, so do my family.