(December 13, 2006) — I stood there in the cold damp room, staring down at all ten of my fingers – and the various other places on my hands – as they dripped with red, red blood. “Woe, what suffering I endure, what toils I bear, to be an artist!” I thought, and sadly displayed my middle finger and its freely flowing red gash to my snickering ceramics professor at Glendale Community College. What was the cause of my grievance, a creeped-out reader like yourself might ask? I had spent all afternoon absentmindedly handling my freshly fired pottery straight after it had arrived out of the kiln, unaware of the sharp glass covered edges that are so common of un-sandpapered or grinded down ceramic treasures. Moments later, a fellow art enthusiast announced her discovery that she had cut her hands while handling a potentially fatal lead based china paint. Later on during the day, yet another compatriot stumbled off the pottery wheel clutching painfully at his back, moaning like a wounded puppy after long hours of bent-over work. This got me thinking. There are thousands of books and Internet pages dedicated to sports injuries and their treatment, but what about the countless injuries that artists suffer daily? Let’s take a quick look at history. The first example that comes to mind is Vincent Van Gogh’s infamous encounter with self-mutilation: due to mounting frustration with his work and his partner, he cut off part of his left ear, wrapped it in newspaper and gave it to a prostitute, telling her to “keep this object carefully.” Next comes Michelangelo, who is rumored to have gone nearly blind after completion of his work on the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, due to the constant dripping of the paint mixture into his eyes as he painted – all the while risking life and limb on a scaffold towering more than 65 feet in the air. When it comes to music, wounds range from everyday musicians suffering from bleeding and bruised fingers and limbs, to the infamous GG Allin. Notorious for his transgressive on-stage antics, Allin once bashed in his front teeth with a microphone. And no explanation is needed when it comes to performance artists, whose more bizarre and dangerous stunts range from live body piercing and fire-eating to experimentation with beds of nails, body stapling and electrocution. From torn and stained clothing, to burnt and bruised fingers and toes, to a gorey gift given from a tortured painter and even the plight of poverty (we all know the stereotype of the “starving artist”), artists risk their physical well-being every day to entertain, amuse, shock and enlighten the world. So next time you see a flustered artist lamenting aloud, don’t roll your eyes in annoyance and think instead of the injuries and sorrows they may be hiding under their avant-garde garb.