Creativity Gives Purpose

From Southern Indiana artist paints his way 'out of darkness':

Although that is a part of his story, he doesn’t want his battle with mental illness and addiction to overshadow the art itself, he said.

“There’s a lot of ways to explain my background,” he said. “I was in addiction, and I worked my way out through painting. That is true. I’ve dealt with mental illness and used painting to work around it. But also, it’s taken the focus off of my work when I do that, because people think this is just some drug addict who’s painting or some crazy guy painting. It gets away from the idea of the paintings by themselves being good.”

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 As an artist, Johnson is pursuing the American Dream, he said.

“I went to the garage and created something,” he said. “I created something out of nothing. Just like my paintings, I just conjured this up…and this is history in the making.”

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 He struggled with addiction throughout the following decade, and at age 30, he “was lost with nowhere to go," he said. He realized he had to “pick a direction in life and go with it,” and he picked painting.

“I just had some problems with drugs and alcohol and things like that, and through that, I painted a little bit, and as I painted and I went along, I realized that I loved it,” he said. “My true gift with God is that he gave me something I love to do, that I have a passion to do.”

This is a guy from Austin, Indiana. It can be anyone who makes the effort; whoever takes the chance at being creative.

I have other posts on the subject of creativity as a way of dealing with depression - check under the label Depression - but it is good to find a local example. People are meant to be creative. Creativity stymied leads to destructive behavior.

sch 7/7/22