On Hypergraphia in the Creative Process
“Where does the creative motivation come from?” I am often asked. “You make so many paintings. It seems like every day you display a new one. Where do you find the time?” they ask.
The real question for some artists is: Where do you find the time to eat, bathe, work, sleep, cook, clean, wash dishes, and get your hair cut? But there is always time for art because it is a compulsion.
Some of the most interesting artists experience a bit of hypergraphia. This is a clinical term that describes a compulsion to paint or write. Van Gogh made 900 paintings in 10 years, and a few hundred drawings. Da Vinci wrote thousands of pages in his notebooks on a myriad of subjects. Emily Dickinson, well, she wrote what she wrote — and a lot of it.
De Balzac drank hella coffee (hella — like 10 to 20 strong black cups) and wrote copiously: millions of words over 20 years — novels, stories, essays, plays, and letters. Mozart and Schumann created prodigious quantities of output in short periods of time.
Hypergraphia, a neurological compulsion to create, comes with some interesting components. There is a compulsive urge to write or draw, often accompanied by emotionally intense moods that can feel spiritual. Constant artistic output fuels and deepens symbolic expression and connection, and intense, prolonged, emotionally nuanced moods allow true originality to emerge.
Connections between concepts, rapid metaphorical thinking, and philosophical urgency drive the process. The urge can feel inspired and guided, as if from a greater force. There is an urgency to record the poetic symbolism that is felt.
This condition can sometimes be recognized by the hundreds of paintings stacked against the walls, the notebooks filled with both finished and unfinished poems, letters, stories, or lists. For every finished poem or painting, there may be four or five half-finished or just-started ideas
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The period of creativity is dense, intense, mystical, musical, and deeply introspective. There is often a huge sense of emotional relief after creating. There can be intense bursts of creativity followed by exhaustion. This yields a lot of “output.” However, it is not always a pleasant experience — or at least, not all of it. There are joyful moments, to be sure, but it can be painful as well.
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