Ironically, the classic bio of my favorite painter is called Lust for Life. But lust is a sin that has sabotaged loads of great artists too. Lust is any intense sort of intense and uncontrolled desire — be it for sex, food, drugs, money, fame, power or freshly-poured, frosty lager. Society loves to depict the artist as a lusty, carnal creature — snorting, boozing, copulating, and then self-destructing at 27.
Uncontrolled. Undisciplined. Lust replaces thoughtfulness with raw impulse. You cave in to self-destructive abandon. Instead of doing the necessary work you are distracted. Instead of drawing the model, you drool on him.
Lust makes you myopic. It distorts your normal perspective and gives you tunnel vision, tuning out everything but the object of your desire. And what you see is not real. It’s a thickly veiled concoction of your fevered mind.
Perhaps you are slender and celibate and sugar-free and believe lust is a sin that doesn’t apply to you…
At the heart of sexual lust is a form of depersonalization. Instead of seeing people as human beings, they become sex symbols. Lust for money isn’t about acquiring the things you need. It’s about the symbolic value of wealth, the illusion that it will provide security and satisfy all your needs. You want gazillions you’d probably never spend. Lust for power makes you ruthless, disconnected from the effects of your actions, reduces people to symbols, to pawns on your board. Mwahahahah!
Lust turns reality into abstraction, turns people into symbols, replaces authentic needs with insatiable hunger. And an artist who cannot see or feel or connect is lost. An artist who only deals in symbols cannot find her way to truth.
Lust is obsessiveness. Lust is abstraction. Lust is infantile, sacrificing your higher goals to your basest weakness. Lust is lost in the future, a future of quelled desire that may never come, a future you cannot control.
But creativity requires control. Control over your skills, your materials, but most of all over your vision of the world you are creating.
Perhaps you are slender and celibate and sugar-free and believe lust is a sin that doesn’t apply to you. But look deep and honestly within and look for those impulses that cloud your objectivity, that distort your actions, and color your perceptions.
Really, what about you? Do you lust for perfection? For acknowledgement? For a Winsor & Newton Series 7 Kolinsky Sable Pointed Round #10 watercolor brush with a seamless, cupro-nickel ferrule (list $499.99)?
Fifth in a series on seven deadly creative sins.
Danny Gregory 
LMAO on the sable brush.
Good post.
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” Lust for power makes you ruthless, disconnected from the effects of your actions, reduces people to symbols, to pawns on your board. Mwahahahah!” WOW… how timely is this statement something for everyone deciding who to vote for to keep in mind.
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That brush is on sale… Just saying
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Mwahahahah instantly transported me to a smoke filled room filled with politicians planning their next speech. PERFECT for the power statement. Now I have to pull back and realize how it applies to me. That of course, is the thoughtful and necessary thing to improve my artist endeavors. Thank you once again.
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Sex and the sable brush🙊
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Seeing as how I am myopic to begin with, how the hell am I supposed to cope with Lust? Thanks Danny for the thought provoking, actually the provoking post. Perhaps we should go with the flow and enjoy the lust, while trying to maintain control of our art. Wait a minute…. what control????
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OMG the brush! That was unexpected and debilitating…
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Because of your great post which I indeed read obsessively, I am wrecked for the rest of the day. And I didn’t even care about the brush. Happy, messy creating to you!
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Yes, to the brush. I’d give away 20-50 of my “other” brushes for that one. Hummmmmm
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Hmm., this is the most interesting of the sins. It always seems natural and right in a way to have certain… well…urges. The Buddha files lust under greed, as a subheading for one of the three poisons. I agree but can’t explain why, it just intuitively works. Desire can be satisfied, but then in the lust form it seems to …well…arise again soon after. Art-wise this one is tricky- I’ll admit to lusting for greater productivity and okay, more recognition for the work. Ah I feel better now.
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I definitely need to remember this. I don’t care about the brush, but I have a horrible pen obssession. And sometimes it keeps me from my art. Somewhere inside me, I’m sure if I only had the perfect set of pens, my art would be miraculously perfect. I know this isn’t true, and I have to do the work myself. But whenever I see a new kind of pen that I don’t have, I’m like a kid mesmerized by toy commercials at Christmas. I must have them! And, like that kid, I’m throwing an inner tantrum because I can’t afford them. To make a long story short -I know, too late- thanks for this eye opening post, and this series.
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