If a little liquor can reduce self-critical anxiety and facilitate the flow of creative thought, who wouldn’t want to indulge in such an effective weapon? Not all students are on board the yellow submarine—or any other color submarine for that matter.

Ingrid V. Pierre ’12, a devout Buddhist and VES fine arts concentrator, chooses to abstain from drug use entirely, and the idea of usage while undertaking creative pursuits strikes her as particularly unsavory.

“Being a Zen Buddhist is all about freeing yourself from any unnatural elements, which will hinder your own ability to pursue what you want to achieve in life. In my case that’s to make art,” she says. “In the fine arts department, it’s about being fluid and free while also staying focused.”

While some students may take a toke before picking up the paintbrush, Pierre is wary of the consequences of drug use and their effects compromising the integrity of her art. She is determined to pursue her painting with an unadulterated state of mind.

“I don’t particularly like all the stuff The Beatles did when they were high. I think it cheapens everything,” Pierre says. “[Drug use] does get in the way of art making and an honest representation of your skills... I think it’s possible for people to produce good work when they’re high. But if you rely upon that as your sole artistic inspiration, it’s an awful thing. What happens when you don’t have access to it?”

BLAZING NEW PATHS

Yet most artists on campus are far from dependent on their drug use. Realizing the potential dangers of an addictive habit and not needing to always be high, they deviate from the stoner stereotype, just as likely to be taking drugs to focus as to chill out.

“I think the whole idea of a stoned artist is a cliché. It’s not real and especially not at Harvard,” Pierre says. “People here are very conceptual, but they don’t need drugs to augment that.”

In addition to the intelligence on which they can rely, Harvard students are simply too busy to pause long enough to have the extensive, conscious-altering experience that can produce creative results in a timely, practical way.

“For me, it [marijuana use] is not the creative inspiration—it’s not some hallucinogenic experience,” says a junior VES concentrator. “I don’t know how much time people here have for that.”

“[Creative writers] drink a lot before they write. Visual arts people smoke more. People here are really too serious, though, at least about their academic ventures,” she adds.

For some, this dedication to academics made Harvard more appealing than schools for the arts.

“I chose to come to Harvard [instead of RISD] because I didn’t like the scene,” Pierre says, considering her comparative impression of drug use at either school. “All the stereotypes of an artist, that’s what you see there.”

Psychology professor Shelley H. Carson affirms the notion that drugs may be less present on our campus in comparison to others. “I would expect there to be less drug use in the artistic community at Harvard, because their ability to be an artist depends on their ability to stay in school,” she says.

Being an artist at Harvard also usually means a great respect for the creative process. “I think the people at Harvard are much more cerebral,” Pierre says. “They care more about the work they are producing. They are really sincere.”