Lonely Hearts Club: The Crafty Nature of Depression
May 27, 2009 | By Georgia M.
There’s something about being sad that lends itself to creativity. Maybe it’s the deeper emotions that make creating something new seem easier, and the raw feelings that make it seem necessary. Even in these enlightened times, not everyone is comfortable being labeled as depressed, so it’s not something we often talk about.
Depression can be crippling, and is something that has affected me for as long as I can remember. I missed a lot of classes because of it during high school, and I wonder sometimes if it has kept me from following a more traditional career path. The worst part of dealing with depression, aside from feeling isolated from everyone else, is that it seems like the situation is completely out of your hands.
When depression affects your working life and your self image, you need every trick in the book to survive. Sometimes during my depression, creating something new has been the best medicine I’ve found. Painting a canvas through a haze of tears is one way to feel better—but I’m not really a heck of a painter, so when my last bout of deep unhappiness hit about a year ago, I knew I’d have to find something else.
In the free time during my shifts at a funky jewellery store in the wrong part of town, I’d walk around floor, looking at all the different styles of handmade jewellery and handbags. One day, I went out on a limb and asked my boss to teach me how to make jewellery. With the design and composition skills I learned from her, I began to cultivate my ideas into cool new pieces, and little by little, my blues began to lift. It was a really rough time for me for a few reasons, but chiefly because my mom had just fallen ill and we weren’t sure how things were going to turn out. Every day that I fashioned something new, I was grateful that I had my creativity to lead me through it. Like many artists, I can be very results-oriented, and focusing upon the positive and physical act of creating art helped me feel less like I was wasting my life.
On the flipside, there are also times when depression can hamper the ability to create. Sometimes the pressure to turn all that sadness and anger into something beautiful can prove to be too much, and then all your energy can turn into lethargy and apathy. It’s a tough break, especially considering what busting through the creative wall could do for your mood. It’s a slippery slope that can lead to a garage full of half-finished canvases and unused art supplies, not to mention deep unhappiness and a feeling of failure on top of your existing depression. Before you know it, crafting art was something you used to do, before you lost that spark of creative energy and settled into a life of paperwork and sleep problems.
Creativity is a gift, however, and letting depression win is a waste of that gift. It can sometimes seem like an unwinnable fight, but it’s worth trying to overcome, both for your art and for yourself. If you can take that small step out of the darkness and have something to show for it, you’ll be able to look back on that time as something you struggled with and won, rather than a period of darkness that took over your life. Creative expression can be fundamental in healing. It’s something we hear about all the time from musicians and writers in the public eye, as I’m sure it has been for many other artists quietly cross-stitching and tea-blending in their homes as well.
As both a writer and a jewellery designer, I’ve found that any form of creativity can help purge ugly, dark feelings. Take your creative skills and use them! When the clouds break, you’ll find yourself one step closer to managing your mood, and you may just have something tangible, and beautiful, to show for your fight.
Georgia Montecalvo is the creator of Vera Luna Jewellery. She divides her time between studying entrepeneurship in college, making jewellery, and writing fiction under the name Annick Sever. Her online store can be found at veraluna.etsy.com, and you can read her blog at veralunajewellery.blogspot.com.
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