DYCP PROJECT, 2021: NEURODIVERSITY, MENTAL HEALTH & ART PRACTICE

Here is some stuff about why I’m writing the blog:

In 2019 I took a break from my art practice (performing, but also researching and developing ideas) due to mental health & burnout. At that time I was open to the idea that I would never return to making work, although I hoped that I would. I had always been seeing making ‘good art’ as the number 1 goal in my life and it was taking precedence over everything, including my health. Now in 2021 I am returning to my art practice and I wanted to document the process of trying to make it sustainable for me, and to put that somewhere public so that anyone else with similar struggles can access the same information.

I have realised over this time of taking a break, that there have been struggles I’ve had since forever that I suppressed and over-compensated for. I have never heard anyone speak in detail about *how* they actually make their art, never mind being honest about the trickier parts. Discussions of process always seem so abstracted and intellectualised. I am really interested in the day to day, and how to overcome challenges, rather than pretending they don’t exist or thinking I am a bad person for having them.

I am now (2021) starting a process of funded professional development looking specifically at these areas of struggle with my DYCP (Developing Your Creative Practice, funded by Arts Council England). This blog will include documentation of that process, as well as stuff from before and beyond that project. Since I am using public money during the DYCP which not everyone can access, I also think ethically, I would like to share and make as much available to others as possible.

In general as well I find work quite inaccessible - I have tried several different jobs alongside art making, and in my time away from art I have tried to ‘just’ work in an office job, and in a beauty salon. It was super challenging and made me realise that those roles often require me to stay in my weakest areas and rarely get to show my strengths. I went through an Access to Work process and received some coaching around neurodiversity and employment. I have had to accept that I am actually not as good at some things - admin and office work, doing long/consistent hours in the same role - as I thought I was, and that I can’t fall back on this as a ‘second career’. That’s actually a good thing, because I am really unhappy in that environment and those roles. But it was a shock, and I felt like everyone else around me, and everyone I had ever met was just ‘fine’ with lots of things I find completely insurmountable. So that’s another reason for writing about this, not only in the context of art but in the context of work, and how do we as neurodivergent people make work, work for us, in a way that is healthy long term.

I hope by sharing what my process is like from the inside, it can be useful to someone else.