What does it mean to lose in the USA? What does it mean to grieve in the 50 states? There is a very important book today called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM.) It is published by the American Psychiatric Association and provides diagnostic criteria for mental disorders. It is used in the United States and in varying degrees around the world, by clinicians, researchers, psychiatric drug regulation agencies, health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and policy makers. This manual and perceptions of madness historically have been controversial as they are in one way a litmus test as to the modes and codes of American society. Insanity-mental dysfunction and how a culture responds to this dysfunction have a symbiotic relationship. For example, a form of madness especially popular in the Victorian age included hysteria- a medical condition, thought to be particular to women, and attributed to disturbances of the uterus. It was a catch all condition only diagnosed in women with an incredibly long list of symptoms including a “tendency to cause trouble.” In the 20th century the diagnosis of this disorder has all but disappeared for a multitude of reasons including the advancement of psychiatric knowledge. However, do not discount the change of the social status of women as a reason. The DSM has been revised four times, with additions and removals that speak of the time at hand, and the acceptance of a dysfunction in society. A notable mental disorder that was once present and now has been removed is homosexuality. A current mental disorder in the DSM-IV is Gender Identity Disorder or being transgendered. Both of these have contentious positions in the manual and one cannot deny that politics are involved in their placement. The next version of the DSM is coming out in 2012 and is currently being revised, edited and added to by a group of 25 psychiatrists. A key word within this manual is “function.” If a person cannot function in their daily life because of their psyche then the person has a disorder. I find that an interesting distinction with little wiggle room. Who determines function? Who determines the ability to work, to socialize, to engage…can an individual determine their own dysfunction? Under consideration for the next manual is the mental disorder, “Complicated Grief” or “Prolonged Grief Disorder.” This is a form of acute grief that lasts longer than 6 months and prevents the person from functioning in society. To quote the article in the New York Times, “Its chief symptom is a yearning for the loved one so intense that it strips a person of other desires. Life has no meaning; joy is out of bounds. Other symptoms include intrusive thoughts about death; uncontrollable bouts of sadness, guilt and other negative emotions; and a preoccupation with, or avoidance of, anything associated with the loss.” This new disorder will probably be included in the new DSM as it has substantial studies and tests that prove it is merited. My take on this is that the symptoms described are universal reactions to loss and historically have been mediated by community rituals and customs in a society. The inclusion of grief as a mental illness in the DSM suggests two things: one is that the way American culture approaches grief in our society is malfunctioning and two that remedies an individual undertakes to mourn are really that-an individual undertaking. Personal actions to memorialize a person are gaining ground. For example, this past week I read an article about Nina Sankovitch, a woman who decided to read a book everyday for a year in order to comprehend the loss of her sister and then write about the books on her blog, http://www.readallday.org. Would you deem that this woman has ‘complicated grief’? The clip to the right is from the American film, “Freaks” made in the 1920’s. At that time, the sideshow of a circus was a community where people like the ones you saw in the film could make a living and have a safe space. At the same time, they were put on the sidelines of our culture to be mocked and ogled at unable to “function” alone. Today I am going to show you a few American outsider artists that I believe are channeling their loss and trauma through the creation of art from the mid 20th century till now. Art represents and creates reality. Before I begin, What is an Outsider Artist? Outsider Artists have been called raw or brute artists. Outsider artists are a subset of folk artists. Like other American Folk Artists they are known to be regular people, unlike some folk artists however they are self taught, on the fringes of society, outside of the mainstream, often mentally unbalanced or disabled, and do not necessarily view their works as art: the things they produce are for themselves. There is no intention for an audience. The work and lives of the artists I will show you are immense and complicated. What I am showing is a mere hint as to their reality and greatness. I believe that loss and grief affected their need to create, but I am sure that nothing is as simple as that. I hope that I can do them justice and you all will take a closer look at the worlds they have created. Henry Darger is the first artist I am going to show to you and talk about. He is the most famous American Folk Outsider Artist today and many people have been captivated by the images that he has created Henry Darger was born in 1892 in Chicago. His mother died at age 4. His whole life he was a recluse-as a child he was put in a mental asylum for children as his father was too poor to take care of him. While he was in the asylum his father died. This asylum or state farm was a cruel place and he and the other children were traumatized. He eventually ran away from the asylum and worked as a janitor for a nunnery for the rest of his life. In 1911 he began to start working on his opus after losing an important photograph of a girl who was murdered on the streets of Chicago. This loss and I imagine the loss of his parents and childhood spurred him into creating a world in his little room about the war between the Glandelian’s-adults who looked like confederate soldiers who hurt and brutalized children and kept them as slaves and the clan of the Vivian girls. Over the course of his life-he told the story contained within the heading, “The Realms of the Unreal.” This tome contains atleast 15,000 drawings and a multitude of stories and other books. Henry Darger didn’t have an external life. His whole world was wrapped around this cosmology he devised. He isolated himself and made this incredible work. His themes of good versus evil in the context of children and adults never ceased and his desire to have a child of his own to love never ended either. He mourned life itself. In the last entry in his diary, before his April 1973 death, he wrote: "January 1, 1971. I had a very poor nothing like Christmas. Never had a good Christmas all my life, nor a good new year, and now.... I am very bitter but fortunately not revengeful, though I feel should be how I am..." Grandma Prisbey 5;32 1982 Is a woman who started making bottle houses for her pencil collection in her retirement at the age of 60 in 1956. She constructed this site until 1982. Grandma Prisbey’s bottle village is located in the middle of the desert in Simi Valley California. Chief Rolling Mountain Thunder 21;45 is the self proclaimed “creator of nothing from nothing.” 1983. 21;45. While driving down the interstate after retiring from being a cop, and a veteran from World War II he settled in a barren part of Nevada off of interstate I-80. Starting in 1968 until 1980 he created the Monument to Rolling Mountain Thunder. In the 1980’s, the place began to fall into disrepair. His wife left him taking their children. Alone, he became depressed and in 1989 he killed himself. Bruce Bickford is a living artist animator. He is a recluse and little is known about his personal life. In high school he began making animations of little people with cars that would self destruct. Then he just began to animate the little people. He was always fascinated by destruction. After coming back from the Vietnam War he started doing animations full time. I am including his work because as you will see it is full of transformation-going from one form, being destroyed and morphing into another. Another contemporary example is Home of the Double Headed Eagle. End at 3;15. The recent article about complicated grief in the new York times had 130 comments by different readers. Many expressed their own experiences of grief. One comment I found especially valuable and will end with it here: It is written by Janice a hospice nurse: She says, “....Everyone grieves differently. I find that many of our bereaved clients feel abandoned by the medical comunity, their friends and many times, even their own families. It is if they feel boxed in by their grief and cannot find their way out. And certainly, the way out is to talk, talk and talk to people. And people just do not always want to hear it. When the bereaved go to the MD to say that they are having difficulty coping or difficulty sleeping, they are medicated. That may help one sleepless night, but it is not going to help long term...... |