I am an autistic artist with ADHD and it is in practical, logical thinking tasks within my practice that I most feel the barrier between hands and brain so I signed myself up for a reduction multicolour lino print workshop this weekend.
I have long pondered how people are able to produce prints incorporating more than one colour. To some, this may seem a very obvious process but I can never quite get my head around the practicalities and seemingly backward thinking of laying the colours. Wordy explanations do not work for me in instructions. I recall begging my 4th driving instructor to please not give me any verbal explanation of how an engine works or why the controls do what they do; just physically show me what pedal to press and when!
Venturing back into the world of academia in my middle age has been a sharp reminder of just how much of a hindrance this can be. Lectures become beautiful clouds of words floating just out of reach above my head. Theories and concepts of my practice that are as clear as a bell in my mind are expressed verbally in a tumble of syllables or not at all. Don’t get me wrong, I do not consider myself special in this regard; I know every person here has a minefield of daily issues and obstacles to navigate.
I have recently applied for a Master’s that I believe would be the perfect path to my childhood dreams. However, after many hours pouring over and submitting my application for this highly competitive course, I have justifiably been asked to present a second portfolio of live observational situational drawings. This fills me with dread and my wonderful ADHD skill of extreme procrastination paralysis has me sitting here with an empty sketchbook unable to pick up a pencil.
How to explain that for me focussing on trying to draw in a setting outside my known comfort zone can be like sitting in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory mid-production of a musical serenade and trying to do complex algebra with a neon sign flashing over my head. But we battle on. Because I am an autistic artist with ADHD. I am an autistic artist with ADHD who will one day write and illustrate my own magical children’s storybook, just as I once promised that timid little girl I once was.
