What I found when I googled ART-COMMUNITY-ISOLATION

The following is a long thread from my personal facebook page. As an experimental artist in Boston, I have felt a personal sense of isolation (negative connotation) not solitude (positive connotation) as I've been creating, producing, and performing work here in the last year...after re-locating from Manhattan. I wanted to see what my creative friends had to say about the quote I found when I googled Art-Community-Isolation. Here is the thread:

"Without isolation, creativity cannot exist... An inability to seek out isolation, to love and make use of it, is a crushing impediment to the creative process. By the same token, there is no greater peril to the artist's mental health than failure to realize how risky a business prolonged social isolation can become."

Nine of my artist-friends 'liked' the quote. Several people seemed to feel ambivalent about the idea of isolation but saw it as necessary. 3 Responders stated that they did not like isolation and felt that their most important work was done collaboratively with others or through some need defined by a community. Performers seemed more likely to echo this sentiment. Most notably (to me anyway), more people that commented on the status reported that they felt being 'isolated' was part of being creative. Someone also noted that being artistic and living a creative life was not 'sensible' and perhaps isolation-style living was more suitable as a result of this. But, I really appreciated deborah's responses to the thread: "What exactly defines isolation in this instance? solitude is not interchangeable with isolation - they imply two completely different states so if we are to consider isolation in the context (already we have a paradox) of creative process then we need to explore how it is different from "being alone" or "being in solitude" and the connection ..."And our friend, Phil James also noted:"I agree with Deborah: there is a big difference between isolation and solitude. I think there is much to be gained from purposeful retreats and these may even be essential, but though difficult and messy, interactivity is for me the source of ongoing nourishment."