I am a late discovered autistic artist. I am awaiting a formal diagnosis.
I have been reviewing my life through a new lens, an alternative perspective on my interpretation on my artistic life.
I will be making new work to reflect this journey of viewing life, art and how I explore the world through an autistic perspective.
I will be exploring different aspects of my autistic brain, how I develop a visual language that represents my brand of neurodivergence.
This would formally have been a diagnosis of Asperger’s before it was renamed Autism Level 1.
Happy to announce that I’ve been accepted as a mentee onto the Neurodivergent Humanities Network and paired with the amazing Dr Kate West of Oxford Brookes University. Kate is an Art Historian and Visual Criminologist and I’m really excited to be working with her.
The programme officially starts in September and I’ll be reviewing my experience in this blog.
The NDHum is a new network and in the early stages of development – they state:-
‘The Neurodivergent Humanities Network is a safe and generative space that accommodates the diverse, individual needs of scholars working in the humanities, while offering a shared sense of community and support.’
I’m really excited about this programme and about the collaboration to see where it might lead.
This week has been busy for the bees, they have been working their merry way around my brain, culminating in a day on the sofa where they could sleep and recover, stare mindlessly at moving images on a screen. But the hands were able to draw and this made them happy.
Sensory Overload sounds very loud to me.
Words, random noises, sirens, birds chirping, people. Too many people.
The bees don’t like too much noise either, it makes them sting, causing pain throughout my brain.
I continue to endlessly smile.
Ovewhelm
When I feel tired or overwhelmed, too much to do, too much to think about, my executive functioning starts to fail, the bees in my brain start buzzing and I become unable to function or speak. This is a problem when you have deadlines, a part time job you need to function fully for and art work to make.
3 days on the sofa to shush the bees is not always an option.
I used to think this was my failing to be a functioning human, it’s not. It’s autism. The synapses in my brain fire differently and it allows the bees in.
Image Description: Image shows skull with collaged bees in place of a brain, text from old books is collaged in some areas and ink is used to draw some traditional portraiture over the skull.
