One of the commonplaces associated with creation resides in the fact that it is better to be unhappy, that happiness blunts the desire to express oneself. This is the subject that multidisciplinary artist Arizona O’Neill has chosen to explore in Can an artist be happy ?, a first comic strip in which she presents the result of twelve interviews with artists, including Klô Pelgag, Hubert Lenoir, Julie Doucet, Patrick Watson and her mother, the writer Heather O’Neill, around this fundamental question.
If this is obviously not the first time that this question has been addressed, one can wonder why the author wanted to address this subject now. “I grew up around artists all my life. My mother is an author, I have always been close to the Montreal art scene and I wanted to write this book with artists, because I am, too, and I understand the emotions of the creators around me. I find that artists are really anxious and doubt their work, even when they are successful. So I wanted to ask this question. »
The question of happiness is, all the same, quite complex. It involves an understanding of what it is, in its almost utopian form. Did Arizona O’Neill, looking into it, really want a clear answer or did she just want to start a discussion? “No, I think everyone gave a really unique answer. Personally, I was surprised that the responses of most people I spoke to were to dwell on the little things in life that bring you joy, the little everyday things. I find that artists have a good understanding of the emotions they experience because they have to integrate them into their work. And what I take away from these interviews is that we must stop chasing constant and total happiness which is, in general, inaccessible. We have to focus on the little everyday things that make us happy. »
Spend your life waiting for her
Yvon Deschamps also made it the subject of a monologue at the end of the 1960s, in which he expressed the idea that the best way to scare away happiness was to spend your life waiting for it. “Yes, I think the words happy and joyful are too loaded a term. Happiness, as we conceive, is a social construction, we put too much pressure on ourselves. I think you have to know that this feeling exists and that’s where you find it. »
There are also social networks that contribute to this constant obsession with being happy. It’s not easy to see all the people we follow on the different platforms giving us the impression that they are having the best night of their lives, while we are at home, in our pajamas, watching a series at TV. “Yes, I talked about it with the author Daphne B., in my book, and you have to remember that people put a character online, that’s who we are on social networks. It is important to keep in mind that all of this is false. »
I grew up around artists all my life. […] I find that artists are really anxious and doubt their work, even when they are successful. So I wanted to ask this question.
These discussions could have taken place in a podcast series, for example. However, Arizona O’Neill is above all a multidisciplinary artist, particularly in the visual arts. It was therefore normal for her to recount these encounters by illustrating them. “It’s a shape that I really like, I could really put all my creativity into it. Each interview has a different style that I adapted to the person I was talking to. It allowed me to show their approach or their work, and that’s one of the things I really like to do. For example, for my discussion with Pascal Girard or with Mirion Malle, I tried to reproduce their way of drawing a little. »
Obviously, we had to choose the artists with whom Arizona wanted to discuss. Did she already know them all? What was their reaction when they knew they would have to talk about their conception of happiness? “I didn’t personally know most of the people I spoke to. I chose them because I found their discourse relevant and there was depth in their relationship to their emotions. Of course, these are people I admire. I’m a fan of everyone in the book! »
“For the conversation with my mother, as we are really close, it was like the continuity of a discussion that we often have, her and me. As for the reaction of the artists I spoke to, when I asked them what made them happy, there is, for example, Klô Pelgag who asked me for a few days of reflection and who came back with her answer: oysters! I even put it on the cover! »
And if Arizona O’Neill had interviewed herself for her book, what would she have answered? Do artists need to suffer to be relevant? “I think it’s a dangerous illusion that you have to be sad to be creative, at the very moment of creation. On the other hand, I think that you must have experienced it, you must have had great sorrows, because you must be able to delve into your life to find your range of emotions. But, at the end of the day, I think artists are best when they’re good at the time of creation. That’s what my mother says, she’s a good artist because she had a lot of pain during her childhood, but now she’s happy and it’s in her youth that she will draw. »
Happiness would it be in the addition of small moments instead of being a subtraction of suffering? That could be a second thought…