MARTIN RAMIREZ~A recent article in the New York Times by Tara Parker-Pope uses the work of Martin Ramirez, an artist with schizophrenia, as a platform to promote and ponder once again the well-worn perception that artistic creativity and mental illness are somehow inevitably linked. Emotional disorders are not afflictions that sometimes come with a built-in creativity boost, NY Times. It's time to lay this stereotypical viewpoint to rest and the stigmatizing statements that often come along with it.
 
Possibly one of the more offensive statements is credited to curator Brook Anderson of the American Folk Art Museum in New York City where Ramirez's work has been shown. Anderson observes, "His reliance on motifs and animals indicate a more sane and less mentally ill part of Ramírez." Perhaps the quote was taken out of context, but is there really creative content reserved only for the sane? And just what is the "less mentally ill part" of any individual, artist or not? This type of statement typifies what people with mental illness must endure from the public and what artists who also happen to have a disability or illness encounter from even the most educated individuals in the art world itself.