23 May 2020> We've been reading Artistry of The Mentally Ill: A Contribution to the Psychology and Psychopathology of Configuration by Hans Prinzhorn for some time now... if u can call it "reading," it's more of a coffeetable type of book u skim thru looking at pictures, but there is contextual text, about what drives schizo minds to create art + various case studies. Think we 1st learned of the Prinzhorn collection reading In The Realms of the Unreal : Insane Writings, which is the same idea but texts by loonies instead of visual art. Copies of The Mentally Ill were crazy expensive then, but in 2019 Martino republished it.

A few posts ago we mulled over why we make art + didn't mention such schizophrenic drivers... not that we think we're coo-coo for cocoa puffs, or if we are we're functional... then again, how would a mind know if itself is crazy? Seams that's a distinction society or doctors would halve to make. And it's a gray area, not black + white... isn't most everyone (especially artists) a bit crazy? One thing we're perty certain of tho is that we make art to keep from going insane, from losing our mind. Especially in this home-bound state there's ever an urge to be productive, to express + process what's going through our head thru art, music or writing cuz otherwise it ends up all boddled up in there. This is sorta the premise for The Mentally Ill, patients in various psychiatric institutions in German around 1919–1921 (doubt this sort of thing would fly in this day + age w/o screams of exploitation) were encouraged to make art as therapy for their conditions... this isn't art made for notoriety, to sell, to hang in galleries, etc. This is art as pure cathatartic expression, "sick" minds or not.