Before you ask, no, Bob Ross did not commit suicide. He's just there to take us to our happy little place before we get into the sad stuff. Bob really liked being an artist, and what is there not to like? You get to act like other people, play with paint and write bad poetry all day long. Sometimes you have the opportunity to dress in really fancy period garb, but most of the time you can just kick it in sweats and that shirt your kid vomited on but you never bothered to stain treat. If you really make it, studios will pay you millions of dollars to pretend to be someone else or millions of dollars to write novels that scare the hell out of full-grown adults. Now thats an impressive career. So, whats so bad about being an artist? Firstly, feast or famine is the name of your newest band. One day you can be on top and the next youre lining up at the local soup kitchen and digging in dumpsters for chow. You try to pay for coffee and realize you need that last dollar for your bus fare. If you mention finances, your family probably thinks youre lazy and they cant understand why you didnt pursue insurance sales like your down to earth sister. You see the world differently. You actually read. If youre an actor, you cant get fat. If youre a singer, you cant use cough drops. If youre a musician, you cant stop wearing black. The work never ends. From the moment you wake up to the moment you pass out with another box of carry-out under your face, youre constantly thinking about the next line of dialogue, the next brush stroke or how to kill off that horrible character in chapter three. Add to that the Sylvia Path syndrome that suggests that artists are more prone to depression, and you can see whats so bad about being an artist. All jokes aside, many artists have taken their own lives and society fails to understand why. The most well known include Hemingway, Plath, Sexton and most recently, Williams. The following artists also took their lives, though you may not have heard about it. Well, let's get into it, Bob.
