Wolf Interviews: Kathryn Vercillo

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After writing across a diverse array of topic areas for nearly two decades, Kathryn Vercillo has honed her craft to the unique niche of writing at the intersection of art and mental health. She has expert experience in exploring the physical and mental health benefits of crafting, and more recently began to dig into all of the ups, downs, and intricate nuances of how mental health impacts art making in diverse ways.

She uses herMasters Degree in Psychology along with extensive research to explore how we can use art/craft/creativity to heal individuals and communities. And how we can mitigate the challenges of our mental health issues, working with them, to allow for the best opportunity for art-making.

She believes in the power of self-expression as a means to authenticity in our relationships with ourselves, our loved ones, and the greater world. She believes that art and creativity are important, healing individuals and communities. 

She enjoys using her experience, education, and writing to help others explore this connection for themselves. Outside of this work, she loves: living in San Francisco, long conversations, reading voraciously, true crime podcasts, and being delighted by her two rescue dogs.

Many usually describe creativity as stemming from mental health, but you treat them more separately and as distinct spectrums. What led you to this conception?

For over a decade my specific niche topic area was the mental health benefits of crochet. I had come to that through my own experience of crocheting during a period of life-threatening depression, a story that I share, in part, in my book Crochet Saved My Life. 

That led to reading and researching a lot about art therapy more generally, particularly as part of my Masters in Psychological Studies. But as I did that, I became curious about the questions not being asked as much - namely: how do mental health symptoms impact artists?

Obviously, there are some people who have addressed this issue. Kay Redfield Jamison’s work in the bipolar spectrum field is a great example. But overall, most writing about it has been either viewing art as therapy or viewing some magical, indescribable link that gives us the tropes of the mad genius or tortured artist. While that’s a thing, I just got more and more curious about how nuanced it is.

As a writer with recurring depression, I began to get really curious about my own experience of how sometimes depression made it impossible for me to write and sometimes the only thing that could help me out of depression was writing. How can both be true? Why? I don’t have an answer, yet, but I fell in love with researching the question - not just as it applies to me but how it seems to apply to other artists. 

Ultimately I believe that all of us art artists (we all create things) and all of us have mental health. As I say in the intro to my book, The Artist’s Mind:

“So, each of us lies somewhere on the mental health spectrum and somewhere on the artistic spectrum, and when we overlay one spectrum onto the other, we get a unique journey between the two. They overlap at different points and pull away at others; at times they may support one another, but can also cause friction.”

The interesting thing about seeing it as spectrums is that sometimes one spectrum outweighs the other. Someone can be extremely creative and committed to art but if symptoms of depression or psychosis get too extreme, they can inevitably stop the art from happening. On the other hand, someone with milder symptoms of those conditions might discover that a high drive towards productivity allows them to create art anyway, and that art might assist with the symptoms. Or they might just be able to create in in spite of them.

I’m not sure the two overlapping spectrums are the best framework for exploring that connection but it’s the best I’ve come up with so far, so I utilize that. I try to look at how symptoms impact creativity - not naming that impact as “bad” or “good” but just exploring what makes the art perhaps be the way the art is. Although I’ve been exploring this for a couple of years now, I feel like I’m really only beginning my journey into understanding this work.

I really like your approach. And as someone who's had depression for possibly my whole life, I very much find the magical thinking that people have for anguish and artistry to mostly be damaging. Including to the younger version of me, who bought into this.

I have a similar anecdote to Crochet Saved My Life, which I've written about here in the past, so I find that quite interesting. In your research, have you found any relationships between developing a hobby or obsession and alleviating the symptoms of depression?

I love that you phrase it as “hobby or obsession.” I think we tend to think of obsession as a negative thing but it’s really neutral. Becoming hyperfocused on something and wanting to deep dive into it can have many positive aspects. Through a combination of my own personal experience and my research, I’ve found that yes, symptoms of depression can be alleviated by this.

Trying to be succinct about it, some ways include:

• Sometimes the excitement of a new hobby can overcome the inertia of depression’s fatigue.

• It can give you something to do if you’re dealing with restlessness or insomnia.

• Anger and irritation are symptoms of depression and some hobbies, especially physical ones such as dance, can provide a channel to express and alleviate those symptoms.

• More than anything else, the hobby provides a focus for the ruminating mind. Rumination makes depression so much worse so anything that takes you out of that state for any amount of time is helpful.

This can also become a positive cycle … feeling excited about something, however briefly, and allowing yourself to delve into that can then trigger a reminder that, “oh yes, I can feel excited about things” which helps get that brain circuitry moving positively again.

Your essays on artists directly tackle their mental health and how it impacted their art. What are some surprises you've found while doing research? Any commonalities you've encountered across artists?

Obviously every human is unique in terms of their mental health as well as their creative self-expression. And I want to add the caveat that I interview contemporary artists directly but a lot of my work is research into history’s artists, which means that I can only make my best guesses about the relationship between art and mental health for each of them given whatever information is available.

That said, here are some of the things that tend to be commonly true:

• People who experience bipolar depression often get very creative in the stage of hypomania or mania. This can be an exhilarating experience. I recently quoted Robert Lowell as having said, “I write my best poetry when I’m manic.” Sometimes this truth has been romanticized or glamorized. But from my research it seems that most people say it’s a silver lining to a challenging condition. That said, many artists with this condition don’t want to take medication because it dulls their creativity - though this seems to be changing with newer medications from what I’ve recently been studying.

• Most artists I’ve interviewed have said that they don’t think that their art would be the same if they didn’t have their mental health journey. BUT most also say that their symptoms have often hindered their art in some way and that as a result if they could erase their symptoms then they might choose to do so. They typically believe they would create art anyway. This strikes me as interesting because it gets at that question: “why do we create?” 

One of the most interesting conditions for me to interview people about is OCD symptoms. Compulsive behaviors can manifest in really fascinating ways for artists. It can show up as repetition in themes and content. It can show up as needing to do certain rituals with the materials when beginning and ending a creative process. More than with other conditions, it seems like it really informs much of the work. And sometimes that very fact can make it therapeutic. I interviewed a crochet artist a bit ago for Happily Hooked Magazine who shared:

“I use crochet specifically as a form of exposure therapy for OCD. With Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), you expose yourself to something that triggers your obsessions, but then you actively work not to engage in the compulsions that would typically go with that trigger. The more that you’re able to do this, the better you cope with your OCD symptoms. One of the things that triggers obsessions for me is even numbers. I cannot stand them in my brain. Even typing out the word “even” causes agitation for me. What I’ve found is that most crochet patterns require the use of even numbers. I use crochet patterns to expose myself to the even numbers, focusing on the work and separating myself from the pain and distress of my nemesis: “even”. It doesn’t always work. Even when I try my very best to follow the crochet patterns, I sometimes revert back to avoiding even numbers. However, I love to crochet, and I keep working on the exposure using crochet patterns.”

The trope of the tortured artist has been around for longer than the field of Psychology, so I wonder how deeply this has informed the way we conceive of creativity itself. Which is to say, I wonder if artists would even relate their mental health to their creativity if not for these longstanding tropes. 

That’s an intriguing point! I think we have a curiosity as humans to know why we do the things that we do. So I think we would inevitably wonder “why do we create” and relate that to the brain and then relate that to psychology. But perhaps not.

OCD is an interesting condition to bring up, because I think we often associate creativity mostly with depression, anxiety, and Bipolar Disorder. Why do you think that is?

Most likely it’s because anxiety and depression (with bipolar being part of the depression spectrum) are the two most common mental health conditions. More people have them than other issues, so we hear about them the most. Moreover, there’s probably been more funding for studying the link to creativity as a result of the fact that they’re more common.

Perhaps because they are more common, they are also less stigmatized than many other mental health conditions. Once you start digging into the relationship between art and mental health, you see more conditions mentioned. Schizophrenia is a big one. There’s a whole world of “outsider art” which is predominantly (although not entirely) created by artists with schizophrenia or related symptoms of psychosis. 

The whole term “outsider art” is problematic as is the history surrounding its relationship to the art world. I explore this a bit in The Artist’s Mind. Here’s a small excerpt …

“In brief, the term refers to art created outside of the traditional, formally and socially sanctioned art world. If many contemporary artists take a path that includes earning an MFA, interning or apprenticing with higher-ups in the art world, journeying through gallery representation with an eye on sales and exhibitions, etc., then outsider art is the opposite: self-taught artists working outside of those boundaries without connection to, or perhaps even any interest in, participating in the art market. That’s the basics. When we delve deeper, however, into who exactly gets the label of ‘outsider artist’, it becomes clear why the term is controversial, and how it directly links with perceptions of mental illness and the stigmatization of various groups.

The term was essentially coined by French artist Jean Dubuffet in the 1940s; then called “art brut” which translates to “raw art,” this style of work was renamed “outsider art” in the 1970s by art critic Roger Cardinal. Dubuffet was captivated with art made by people in psychiatric institutions, and specifically inspired by the writings of German psychiatrist and art historian Hans Prinzhorn which documented a wide array of asylum art. Dubuffet also included work by prisoners, mediums or clairvoyants, children, the elderly, and the uneducated. Subsequently, those who champion so-called outsider art have continued to focus on art created in institutional settings (by psychiatric patients as well as the imprisoned), along with art created by people with learning disabilities, mental health challenges, those who are homeless or underhoused, and other marginalized groups.

We can see immediately that there are a lot of problems with this label from the broad spectrum of artists included under its umbrella. While it’s certainly wonderful to acknowledge these artists in their own right, the history of the art world’s engagement with outsider art has been marked by a sort of patronizing privilege. In the same way that we would never say today that Christopher Columbus “discovered” America, it’s also problematic to say that someone from the art world (a critic, dealer, curator, etc.) has “discovered” an outsider artist. There is also an issue with insisting that outsider art is somehow “pure” or “untouched,” as if all the diverse artists who would supposedly fit into this category have no understanding of the world around them, and that their work is not just as contextual to specific cultural and social moments as the work of artists accepted by the establishment.”  

I share this because it relates directly to your question … schizophrenia is much more stigmatized that anxiety, for example. So even though there’s interest in the relationship between schizophrenia and creativity, it’s historically been sanctioned off into this sort of “othered” category. And therefore may not be explored as much in the mainstream.

Since interviews seem a central part of your substack, what makes for a great and interesting interview?

Well, it’s probably obvious, but open-ended questions are the key. I like to start all my interviews with letting people know that even if I’m asking a bunch of specific questions, they never have to answer anything and they can share as much or as little as they’d like. I tell everyone, and it’s true, “the story you want to share is the story I want to share.” I find it humbling when people allow me to share their stories so I think it’s important to give it that respect.

And then asking one or two kind of random “ice breaker” questions that can actually lead to some interesting discussions. When interviewing crocheters and other craft artists, I always ask, “if you could have a craft party and invite five people (living or dead, real or fictional, who would you invite and why?” I think this allows people to think more creatively, not be so afraid to answer questions in an interview, and also it’s just super fun to hear the answers. They often lead to new questions.

Final thoughts?

After writing full-time in the traditional business models for over 15 years, I switched to a subscription newsletter (first via Patreon and now via Substack) a few years ago because I have come to believe that the constant churning out of "content" is not beneficial to writers or their readers. Subscriptions allow for more in-depth research and writing, true connection with the community, and celebration of creative process rather than only product (not to mention that they remove the ad-based monetization model.) As such, I am on a mission to find 1000 people willing to support my work at $100 per year each. This is primarily done through Substack annual subscriptions, but there are other options available as well. I practice artistic tithing, giving back a minimum of 10% of all earned income to other writers, artists, performers, etc. because I am committed to making this model a reality for all creatives, not just for myself. If that amount is too high, I accept one-time donations of any price, and I also offer a Pay What You Can Option on Substack starting at just $10 per year. Support is valued more than I can ever describe.

Buy Kathryn Vercillo’s new book The Artist’s Mind.