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Welcome to Your Art Is A Spell, the podcast that ignites inspiring and transformative conversations about art as a magical practice. I'm your host, Edgar Fabián Frías—a multi-passionate artist, witch, therapist, and proud mutant shape-shifter. My art spells have reached audiences through social media, billboards, and skyscrapers and have even been placed on the surface of the moon! Join us as we explore how reclaiming your unique artistic voice and embracing bold creativity can transform your life and the world around you. Subscribe to the podcast and sign up for our newsletter at www.yourartisaspell.com to stay connected!
Who profits from artists pain? Someone is
profiting off the idea that your pain makes
better art. It's not you. I used to work at
a treatment center in Los Angeles. And I'll
never forget the artists and writers who would
come into the treatment center almost excited
for their breakdown like it was finally their
turn to earn the title of being a real artist
or a writer. And that's not an accident. That's
a story we've all been sold. And in this episode,
we're breaking down exactly who wins when artists
believe that they have to suffer to be real.
Welcome, or welcome back to Your Art Is A Spell.
Somewhere along the way, we all absorbed the
same lesson. If you're not suffering, you're not
serious. If your work doesn't come from a wound,
it doesn't count. We've turned the starving artist
from a description of poverty into something that
we treat like a personality trait, almost like a
badge of honor. Think about who gets remembered
this way. Basquiat's addiction gets mythologized
instead of mourned. Van Gogh's mental illness
becomes a romantic footnote instead of a tragedy.
And it's not just history. It's happening right
now. Artists, writers, musicians are so often only
celebrated when their work is about struggle. Make
something about joy, rest, or softness. And
suddenly it's less serious, less political,
less worthy of a grant, a review, a platform.
So the question I want to sit with today isn't
is this true? It's who benefits when we believe
this? Because someone does benefit. This story
doesn't survive for centuries by accident. The
art market benefits because a suffering artist
is a compelling artist and a compelling artist
sells. Trauma is marketable. It's a built in
narrative arc. So, gallerists and collectors don't
have to do any work. The pain does it for them.
institutions benefit because if artists believe
that struggle is the price of legitimacy,
they'll accept less. Less pay, less rest, less
boundaries because that's just what it takes. And
quite frankly, the wellness industry benefits,
too. ironically because now there's a whole
economy built around healing artists and the very
suffering they were told they needed in the first
place. And if you're a marginalized artist,
queer, trans, an artist of color, disabled,
you're not just expected to suffer for your art.
You're expected to make the suffering and your
community's suffering the actual content of your
work. Your identity as someone who suffers becomes
the topic that you're allowed to have. step
outside of that, make something that's maybe
joyful or playful, abstract, and just watch
how much harder it is suddenly to get funded
or to be taken seriously. I'm here to remind you
that your art can be fun. It can be playful. And
that the trauma you've experienced can just exist
between you and your therapists or your friends.
It doesn't have to become the subject of your next
artwork unless that's what you want. And what's
even more nefarious is that we black, brown,
queer, and trans, disabled artists were never
a part of the colonial root of the tortured genius
myth. It was built inside a western, mostly white,
mostly male romantic tradition. It was never
built with us in mind, but it's still the ruler
that we're all being measured up against. Now,
I've spent over a decade as a working artist,
and I've also seen behind the curtain of what this
industry does to people who create from wounds
instead of from wholeness. I want to say something
directly because I don't feel like it gets said
enough. As I said before, I've watched people in
treatment, people who were talented, sensitive,
genuinely gifted, choose relapse because some part
of them was scared that healing would kill their
art. That if they got calm, if they got well, that
their art would stop. I don't want that story for
artists. We are sensitive. We do have unique
gifts and those things need to be nurtured,
not sacrificed. A lot of us have never been
taught how to navigate our sensitivities,
how to wield our gifts, or even how to protect
ourselves. It might sound romantic to chase pain,
to chase experiences that you'll grow from, but so
many of us would genuinely benefit from choosing
grounding instead. Choosing peace, developing our
relationship to our intuition, to our inner voice,
to what some traditions would even call our
muse, our daemon, our ancestors, instead of
constantly having to heal and repair from the
pain we convinced ourselves we needed. Here's
the flip side that I want you to walk away with.
joy, play, rest, nurturance, care. These aren't
the opposite of serious art. They're radical acts
of resistance. Because think about what a system
built on urgency and suffering actually wants from
you. It wants you tired. It wants you desperate.
It wants you to believe that your value is
tied to your output and your output is tied
to your pain. A well-rested, a joyful artist,
a nurtured artist is much harder to exploit.
So when you choose rest over grinding through
burnout, when you choose play over forcing serious
work, when you choose community over isolation,
you're not being lazy or precious. You're refusing
to participate in a system that needs you depleted
to function. That's political. That's not separate
from your art. That is a part of your art. And
it is a part of creating a different reality not
just for artists but for everyone who's watching
artists model what is possible which brings me
to the idea of having an art block because I feel
like we've completely misdiagnosed it maybe even
overblown it we've been taught that an art block
is either a personal failure that you should beat
yourself up about or a crisis so severe that it
requires some extreme intervention. Burn it all
down, force a breakthrough, chase an experience
that will shake something loose. I just want to
offer you something a little less dramatic. An
art block is often just a normal cyclical part
of the process. Sometimes it's your nervous system
asking for a bit of regulation. Sometimes it's a
sign that you just need a break from your artistic
practice. Sometimes it's simply a redirection,
not a stop sign, just a different road.
It doesn't mean that something is wrong
with you. It doesn't mean that you're not a
real artist. It just means you're a person.
And people like nature have seasons and cycles.
So, here's the last thing I want to leave you
with. Healing doesn't kill your art. It's what
finally lets you hear your own voice instead of
just the wound. If you healed tomorrow, would you
actually be scared that your art would disappear?
sit with that question honestly because I don't
think that your art disappears when you heal. I
think that what disappears is the performance
of pain you thought you had to give in order
to be allowed to make it. And this is exactly why
I've built my membership space mutant-magic.com.
It's not just a place for insider knowledge
from over a decade of being a working artist,
though it is that too. It's also a space where
we can actually support each other as artists
instead of doing this alone. Instead of
competing over who suffered the most to
earn their seats at the table, you can join for
free at mutant-magic.com. That signs you up for
my newsletter. And if you want to go deeper,
there's an exclusive community that has its
own private podcast. In the next episode of the
Mutant Magic Podcast, I'm getting candid about a
question that I get asked constantly. Is an MFA
really worth it? So, if that's something you've
been wondering about or want some community,
come to mutant-magic.com and sign up today.
And last, I just want to thank everyone who's
come on to Patreon to support me as an artist as
well as this podcast. Thank you genuinely for your
support. Your support is what lets me keep making
art on my own terms instead of burning out just
to survive. And it's what makes content like this
possible in the first place. If you want to be a
part of that, you can find me there on Patreon,
too. I'll be linking it in the description of
this video as well as in the show notes. So,
notice this week where you feel pressure to
perform pain for your art, for your audience,
for anyone, and instead try choosing rest, try
choosing play, try choosing ease, and see what
happens. And never forget that your art is a
spell and it will change your life and the world
around us. Thank you so much for listening to this
episode or watching us on YouTube. If this episode
resonated with you, please share it with an artist
friend who you feel could use this message. Want
to help this message spread? Help us grow by
playing with the algorithm, giving us a thumbs up,
leaving a comment, sharing it on other platforms,
as well as following us, and leaving us a review
on Apple Podcast or Spotify or anywhere you get
your podcasts. All of this helps our community
grow and helps me in sharing this message
with more unique weirdo artists just like you.