Artistic Interlude

My latest watercolour painting - September 2018

I painted this picture at the end of September - so before my wappy paint-researching-and-buying spree, and after the post in which I announced that perhaps I hated painting, because I certainly don't seem to get a great deal of joy out of it.

It took me five consecutive days to complete, painting for a couple of hours each morning.  I set no goals, other than to simply paint.  I let it take me as long as it wanted to take, and I took my time and slowed the whole process down.  I also kept it simple, using only three colours - burnt umber, raw sienna, and French ultramarine blue.  

Nor did I have the stress of trying to match my colour scheme to that of the original photograph, because the photo was in black and white. And, for once, I didn't confuse matters for myself, and drive myself into delirious indecisive distraction, by referring to all of the accumulated printouts I have of innumerable paint colours and possible mixing combinations.

I have to report that, remarkably, all these conditions together appear to have worked to produce a miracle, and I actually enjoyed this painting experience.  It seems that giving myself the freedom to voice the disquieting thought that I might not like painting after all, allowed me to make a shift from my entrenched position - hopefully not just temporarily.

I also spent less time criticising what I was doing, or the end product. In fact, I actually really like this painting.  It represents a deliberate change in the way I'm trying to paint now - more flow, less rigid control; layering and mixing paint on the paper rather than in the palette; choosing colours I like, rather than trying to replicate those of the subject; trying to paint what I see and feel, rather than the pull of photorealism, and trying to paint what I think I should be seeing.

All of which is quite remarkable for me - the woman for whom change comes at the speed of a tortoise wearing concrete boots.  It's only taken me about seven years of painting to start to break free of the rigid rules I've been confined to trying to follow.  Hopefully it won't take that long for the next change!  

I guess if I stop trying to follow what other people say and do (with my dodgy autistic interpretation skills), which is what has impeded my progress, and trust in my own ability and God's guidance, then I might evolve a bit quicker.  I surely can't get any slower - other than to come to a complete standstill.   

Iceberg Ahoy!

What I spent five hours doing with my paints instead of painting.  Plus a sample selection of my new paints.

It started with a discount voucher: which happened to be contained within a catalogue.  Two things I have a difficult time resisting.  Add in the fact that it was the biannual art supplies catalogue from Ken Bromley’s, promising a five pound discount IF I spent fifty-five pounds, and that it happened to coincide with my recent desire to extend the range of paints which I own, and I was basically sunk - Titanic, meet iceberg: Lisa, meet paint.

To elucidate further, this means that I have just spent at least two weeks, that’s TWO WHOLE WEEKS (even I cannot quite believe it), trying to decide which new watercolour paints to buy.  

How, in the name of Van Gogh, does a person take so long to make such a decision?  I mean, we’re talking paint here, not whether or not I should have a kidney transplant.  It defies belief; it defies logic; it defies the nature of time, space, and the laws of physics.  But defy all those things I have done, because that’s what I do.  Just don’t ask me how - I’m as baffled as you.

It wasn’t my intention to take so long - but then, as I am slowly learning, nothing I intend ever actually translates into action.  In fact, you can guarantee that the moment anything even vaguely resembling a desire or intention escapes my subconscious and manifests itself either as thought or word, it will sink without trace.  Like the Titanic (I think I see a theme here).

My actual ‘intention’ was to briefly (I obviously have no grasp on the meaning of the word brief) peruse a few art sites with which I’m familiar, in the misguided belief that they would aid me in simplifying and clarifying what to choose.  Already I begin to see the flaw in my argument.  Why would I need someone else to tell me how to choose paint?  It’s not like I’m a complete novice anymore: I know the kind of colours that I like; I know the kind of paintings that I prefer doing.  

But no, all of that knowledge goes out the window because, you see, it’s not about the paint colour - it’s about the pigment.  (Yes, that was just the tip of the iceberg.  No, I couldn’t see the rest of it, hidden beneath the sea of paint waiting to sink me).  And for that I needed an ‘expert’, which required more research: which translates as more time spent on the internet.  Hence two weeks of “research” - more commonly known around here as another obsession.

So, I may not have been doing a lot of painting (nothing new there then), but I now know an awful lot about paint and pigment.  Of course, I can barely recall most of the details, given that I’ve saturated my brain so much that most of it seems to have dribbled out of my ears.  

But I did eventually buy some paints, and then proceeded to avoid actually using them for their intended purpose.  Instead I spent two days ‘testing them out’, and boring myself into a near-catatonic stupor in the process - because, once again, I’d read a load of advice from a bunch of non-autistic artists, all saying the same things about how useful these exercises are to the improvement of one’s art: which translates in my mind as “it’s what ‘proper’ artists do”.  

Oh God, when will I learn that I come from a different ‘planet’, and what works for them doesn’t work for me in quite the same way!  Ah well, it’s done now.  Next I just need a few new brushes...  Oh lawks, I think I see another iceberg looming. *scrambles for lifeboat* 

A Pain In The Art

Here's my latest painting, which I managed to knock out after a whole lot of the usual lack of self-belief, anxiety-induced executive functioning deficient dithering and inertia (a new thing about which I was recently made aware), which is produced whenever I'm faced with the prospect of needing (even wanting) to put paint to paper.

I may not be improving when it comes to how I feel about my painting, but I have got better at believing in my ability to draw - so, in order to postpone the "dreaded deed", I simply drew a number of things until I felt suitably girded in the loins to take the plunge and get out the painting gear.  And here's the result.

Of course I wasn't happy with it, and gave a running criticism of it while I was doing it - it will be a miracle if the day ever comes when I am, and I don't.  Nor did I particularly enjoy doing it, because I was so fucking uptight and anxious about whether I was getting it "right", and doing it "properly" (those words are the bane of my existence: I shall have them engraved on my gravestone - 'She died right, and properly: indeed, she was a right proper charlie').  

I know "great" artists are often depicted as tortured, hyper self-critical souls, being driven by the unrelenting need to improve and perfect their art, which is often seen as a sign of their greatness, but I didn't want to be one of those kinds of artists who suffered for their art.  I mean, for fuck's sake, I don't know how they ever managed to get anything done if they suffered anything like the bloody insecurities and almost catatonia-inducing fear of making mistakes which I do. 

Perhaps that's the point, though.  Perhaps they don't feel the same.  Perhaps they aren't driven by the same things.  Perhaps at their core they believe that they are great, and they're driven to prove it; and what they fear is being proven to be average.  Me, I have no sense of my own ability, so I constantly seek to measure it against other people - which means I end up trying to copy them, trying to follow directions which I don't fully comprehend (but think I do), and trying to adjust myself to suit another person's modus operandi.  So whenever I pick up a paintbrush it's like there are two people with me at the easel - there's me, and there's whoever is the latest 'guru' artist to whom I've taken a shine, both fighting to stamp their mark on the paper.

I often find myself  wondering whether I'm lying to myself when I say that I love painting.  I mean, you wouldn't think this was the case given the torturous (and tortuous) process I have to go through to motivate myself to do it.  It's like pulling teeth without an anaesthetic.  Perhaps I should just use a bit of reverse psychology, and come out and say, "I FUCKING WELL HATE PAINTING!!!", see if that changes anything.  

Perhaps, though, it's not that I hate painting, but rather that I hate painting the way I think other people paint, or the way I think that other people would tell me I should paint.  After all, I am (annoyingly) also oppositionally defiant, so if I even feel as if I'm being expected to do something (yes, even if it's something I want to do) then I automatically will do the opposite.  Don't ask me why - it's one of the great, unfathomable, frustrating mysteries of my personality, which makes me want to tear my head off and stamp on it.  

So, you want me to paint - I don't want to; you think my paintings are great - I think they're not good enough, probably never will be, and all I can see are the mistakes I made; you think I'm a good artist - I think I'm average, and not as good as... (insert long list of artists' names here), and never will be.  It makes me wonder how I've managed to produce anything at all with a brain like mine.  I should just go and eat worms.

Photo Fix It

This is just a brief post to say that I finally "fixed" the problem of not being able to get my photos of my artwork uploaded to my blog (as I reported in the post 'Still Alive!' in May), with a little help from my friend, who is the techno-loving polar opposite to my techno-allergenic self.  It turned out to be rather simple in the end - I just had to set up a Google Photos account and post my photos in there in order to be able to upload them on here, because Google won't accept them from iCloud, where they are now saved.  A bit of a faff, but there you go.

So here is some of the artwork I did during my three month painting period at the beginning of the year.  And just to note that I was trying to experiment during this period, attempting to loosen up and play a bit, and break free of the habit of rigidly trying to reproduce what I see in the photos I use as source material: hence the less-than-realistic colour schemes on some of them.  It was intentional and not an error on my part, brought about by a sudden bout of colour blindness!  Suffice it to say, I haven't done any more art since that period came to an end in May/June - as is my way.  As always, in this world of uncertainty, I can be depended upon to be reliably unreliable and consistently inconsistent.

    

Still Alive!!!!

This is just a quick note to say I am still here, I just haven't been doing any writing (well obviously).  I haven't abandoned my blog, I've just been caught up in doing art instead - every day for nearly the last three months.  Don't know what came over me!

Of course, this means that my writing has suffered because, as my best friend just pointed out, I cannot maintain focus on, and do, two things at the same time, much as I hate to admit it.  So I'm now going to have to let go of the idea that I can somehow fit both writing and art into every day, and instead do one or the other, as the inspiration flows between them.

And, in order to maintain this blog, I shall be trying to post both writing and my art in blog posts, instead of sticking to what has (inevitably) become a concretised idea that blogging requires me to always have to write stuff.

(I've just tried adding some of my recent artwork to this post, and there seems to be a problem, which I'm having trouble figuring out.  So I'll leave it for now, and hope that it isn't a permanent state of affairs. *the Voice of Doom, commonly known as Eeyore*).

Static Cling

“We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it.”      William Hazlitt

Have you ever heard the allegory of the centipede which, when asked how it knew which of its hundred feet to use when, found itself unable to move when it started to think about it?  Well, this is me.  Obviously, I don’t mean that I’m a centipede, or that I’ve got a hundred feet.  No: but the minute I think about how to do a thing, you can guarantee I find myself unable to do it.  

Case in point.  I don’t know whether you’ve noticed but, for the first four months of this year, I managed to be extremely consistent and post two blog articles every month.  Amazing, what?!  And I don’t know whether you’ve also noticed that, for the last two months, I haven’t published anything at all?  (Nothing like going from one extreme to the other).  So, what the devil happened?

Well, it wasn’t ‘the devil’, much as I might want to blame it on someone or something else (some supernatural distracting force that body-snatched me, and put a stop to my literary musings).  

To put it simply, ‘I’ happened.  ‘I’ did it.  And the question is, how did I do it?  Well, it wasn’t with a spanner, in the library, with Professor Plum, that’s for sure.

No, it was far easier and simpler than that.  ‘I’ noticed how consistent I’d been, and so ‘I’ started thinking…  

Rather than continuing on with what was working (which meant just going with the flow,  spontaneously writing whenever I had an idea, and not thinking about the logistics of how to do it), I started to worry about how long this would last, and to plot how to ensure the continuation and improvement of this happy state of affairs (meaning posting more blog posts every month, ‘cos I have an obsession with the idea that more is better), I decided to stick my oar in and tinker, once again, attempting to set up a routine for my writing which would maintain and improve my productivity.  Concrete thinking here we come!

I really do have a problem with rigid thinking, and wanting everything to be written in stone, even though you can guarantee that I’ll change it at some point (whether it be sixty seconds, sixty minutes, sixty hours, or sixty days later).  This seems to be one of the areas where the autistic and the ADHD in me clash and/or overlap.  My personality is geared to wanting such tight control of everything, which just exacerbates the rigidity: and vice versa.  

And then there’s what might be the trait of spontaneity (the jury’s still out on whether I have any of this) which longs for freedom, but which possibly transforms and manifests as the flighty impulsivity due to my insistence on attempting to nail it down.  ‘Cos that’s what I do to myself - construct a solid concrete prison, which I call routine, rather than a wooden framework that can easily be altered, dismantled, rebuilt, or added to as necessary.  I don’t so much flow as clunk through life.

So, point in question - writing.  Having unfortunately noticed the longed-for consistency, I determined to set out a routine (set of rules) for my writing that I believed would help me continue with this novel concept which I seemed to have inadvertently stumbled upon.  In short, I got caught up in the minutiae, yet again.  

This meant questioning everything involved in the process of writing - when’s the best time for me to write; how long/how much should I write (eg should I do it in short bursts to accommodate my ADHD, even if I find myself happily focused and wanting to continue beyond the allotted time); how often (daily, every other day, weekly, three times a day, every hour); best place to be (living room, bedroom, kitchen, outdoors); best position (on the sofa, at the desk, at the dining table, on the bed); seated, standing, reclining; on paper or the computer, or rough draft on paper and then computer; one draft or more, rough outline/plan, or leap straight in; what to write - blog article, short story, poem, novel, peace treaty!?  Who knew there was so much to the art of writing, before you even set pen to paper?  Now I see why I often resist doing it!   

And amazingly, as you can see from the evidence, all of my attempts to formalise and formulise my writing has produced miraculous results - I haven’t managed to produce a sodding thing!

Yet I still insist on trying to exert control.  Why is that?  Well, apart from the fact that I just naturally like to be in control, it’s partly because I retain the persistent (but misguided) belief that I can’t be trusted to do anything unless I’m forced into it, using the timeworn method of rule enforcement; and also because, having read copious amounts of info on the subject, I now find myself copying.  Unfortunately, most of the stuff I’ve read (and taken personally and literally) incorporates the concepts I’ve mentioned above, such as disciplining yourself to write daily (another way of saying forcing yourself), etc.  

The fact that most of these people are talking about writing for a living, writing full-length novels, and that they aren’t catering to autistics with ADHD goes completely over the top of my head.  Their motivation is completely different to mine, yet I find myself adopting theirs, which results in writing losing its pleasure for me.  And once it does that, once I start writing from a distorted sense of necessity and fear, then my well of inspiration dries up completely.  Kind of like God saying, “I’m sorry, Lisa, but I don’t want you to write for money or fame or any of those other  materialistic motives: I’d just like you to write for the pure joy of it.”

And it’s not only my writing that I’ve picked apart just lately: I’ve done it with art, too.  Well I would, wouldn’t I?  Once I start doing it with one thing, the trait takes over and spills into everything.  It’s not the individual thing that’s the problem, but me, and there’s no point trying to focus all my attention on fixing the object or situation, in the belief that once I’ve done that then I’ll cease to worry, ‘cos it doesn’t work.  I’ve tried, and failed - numerous times.

So, for example, when I start worrying about one thing, I’ll then find other things to worry about, until I end up in a permanent state of worry, where the focus of my anxiety becomes completely irrelevant.  It’s like setting a time bomb ticking, and letting it run until it culminates in one massive explosion - an autistic meltdown.  Unless, of course, I have the wherewithal to remember to turn the timer off, rather than running around like a loon, trying to manage a live bomb, doing silly things like trying to bury it when it’s still active.

As to art, all of my paintings so far are done by copying from photos.  But a few weeks ago I had a sudden inspiration for something I could do from my imagination.  Of course, it almost scared me to death - I mean, I’ve never been able to draw from my mind (at least, nothing decent: they always resemble the scribblings of a two-year old with hiccoughs, in my opinion), and yet here I was, on the cusp of some great change.  Not only that, the idea I had was abstract: I don’t do abstract.  Obviously God must have been at work, overcoming the confines of my limited imagination, gently nudging me forwards to try something different: especially as I have been saying for a while that I would like to be able to produce my own original work.

But saying it and doing it are two different things.  So what did I do with this spark of an idea?  I obsessed about it, talked about it, did a brief sketch, and then abandoned it in favour of going searching for ways to practice playing and having fun with my art - ‘cos that’s what I decided was what was holding me back, the problem being that I take it all too seriously.  Which is true.  But, basically, my solution was a way of procrastinating about trying something new, and in itself involved trying something new.  How dumb can you get?!  

Which is how come I ended up spending hours trawling the web, looking first at art therapy (I thought it might help me to express myself!?), and then landing on art journalling, which I was convinced was the answer to my prayers (and a way to combine art and writing, so becoming consistent at both at the same time).  I even bought myself a ‘proper’ artist’s sketchbook, with thicker watercolour paper, for the purpose (not thick enough, as it turns out: the pages buckle on contact with the paint.  Sheesh!).  Fortunately it only cost me about £3, and it turns out it’s not the answer to anything, really, other than avoiding doing art.  Which I have successfully managed to do.  As was my unconscious, fear-driven, intention.

You know what I find really strange about all of this, though, and which gives me cause to wonder whether I do, in fact, have the innate ability to be spontaneous (despite my seeming autistic genetic resistance to the whole concept)?  I don’t recall having this problem when I was a child.  I would write stories when I wanted to write, draw pictures when I felt like it, and launch myself into trying things like handstand (and succeeding with persistent practice - something I’m not now well known for) without prior instruction, because that’s what my body wanted to do.  

I didn’t question whether it was possible or not, but simply believed that I could do it, and so just did it.  Whereas now I think I have to have a fucking step-by-step guide to how to do the simplest of things because I’m afraid of getting it ‘wrong’.  Which leads me to wonder whether the problem lies not with a lack of spontaneity, but with having absorbed the idea that there’s a ‘proper’ way to do everything, and that you can’t just decide to do things, willy nilly, without having someone teach you first.

The question is, how did the first people learn how to do everything when there was no-one to teach them?  It’s something my best friend asks me whenever I insist on going off to look for instruction on the internet, clinging like a limpet to the static idea that I need someone to copy, to tell me what to do.  And then I ignore them, or alter the instructions.  So it’s a bit bloody pointless anyway.    

The Meaning Of Life

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”  Mahatma Gandhi

If it’s the case that everyone on the planet is different, a distinct entity, each with their own unique combination of characteristics, interests, and skills (not to mention physiological make-up), then why is it that “the world” insists on treating us all alike, trying to enforce on us a generic, societal norm to which we are expected to conform?

I have often noted how there appears to be a pattern to life that we are expected to comply with - it’s subtle, for the most part, but it’s there.  No-one states it outright - the government doesn’t announce that we’re being herded and penned in like sheep where they want us to be, but that’s what seems to be happening.  

Think about it - we’re born, and for a little while at the beginning we’re free.  But then we’re expected to be sent to school, and suddenly our lives are no longer our own anymore, ‘cos here is where we will be both ‘socialised’ and ‘formally’ educated in the topics and manner that someone else far removed from us dictates is appropriate (our parents have very little say in this, once they agree to turn us over to the education system), with the end goal being that we shall, hopefully, be moulded into useful citizens who will conform and contribute to society.  

Which basically means that our main objective in life will be expected to be working and making money - who gives a shit if you’re happy while you’re doing it?  Hell, everybody knows that having money makes you happy.  Don’t they?  Well, that’s what ‘the world’ would expect us to believe anyway, it seems.  Must be, since there’s so much emphasis placed on it.  

Along with making money goes the expectation that we shall want to find a romantic partner in order that we may settle down some day (kind of like sediment) and have a family, for whom we will have to provide, thus keeping alive the incentive for working, and directing our focus on the continued need to make money.  And, of course, since we have the equipment for making babies, then it’s assumed that we will naturally want to use it for that purpose at some point.  If not, then there’s something obviously ‘wrong’ with us (as if there weren’t already enough things ‘wrong’ with me already!)

Then we head into retirement, the time that we expect to be able to finally take it easy, stop chasing the money, and hopefully be able to do all those things that we weren’t able to do previously because we were too busy having to focus on making a living in order to live.  And, hopefully, of course, by now we’ve made enough to do those things.  

Except that we might well find that by this time we’ve lost the energy, enthusiasm, motivation, and physical ability to do a lot of what we dreamed of doing, having been sucked dry by the stress and general wear and tear of daily life.  Plus, of course, some of us may well have dropped down dead before then, which kind of puts the kibosh on any such plans.  So retirement literally becomes a time when we’re put out to pasture, like an old horse, for whom there’s very little use any more.  Gee, sounds great.  I can’t wait.

I understand now why, for almost the whole of the first thirty years of my life, I felt a deep sense of melancholy and gloom, having this as my invisible blueprint for what was expected of me in order to be considered a success in life, and to achieve happiness.  

One aspect in particular to which I have been giving a lot of thought  (that means obsessing) in recent weeks is school.  Do you realise that you don’t actually have to go to school; that you can legally opt out?  I didn’t know that, until now.  All those years I laboured under the illusion that I had no choice: it was either attend school, or get into trouble for truancy.  God, was I pissed off when I found out!

Sure, I’d vaguely heard about homeschooling, where, if you’re lucky, you get to be taught at home by either your parents or a private tutor.  But still, you follow the curriculum set by the education department, and you take exams.

I also recently found out that there are ‘alternative’ schools (like the Steiner Waldorf system), which place their emphasis on the needs of the individual pupil, rather than the institution, and which follow their own curriculum, giving equal importance to creative endeavours (like art, drama, dance, etc) as well as to the academic; as well as to the needs of the whole person.  Where were these people when I needed them?!

And from there I discovered unschooling, a movement dedicated to not forcing education on your child at all, but to allowing the natural process of learning to take place.  In unschooling parents don’t dictate what ‘should’ be learnt, but rather allow their children to decide what they would like to learn, based on their interests and abilities.  Nor are they expected to prove their understanding by jumping through the hoop of exams, being tested like a bloody piece of machinery before it’s allowed off the factory line and sent off to be sold.

I was astonished.  I was dumbfounded.  I was envious.  God, I wish my parents had known about that stuff when I was a child.  Instead of which I had to endure the agony, the monotony and tedium, not to mention the chronic anxiety directly related to being shoved through an average, non-creative education system, which did a grand job of sucking the soul (both creative and otherwise) out of me and my artistic aspirations.  

I went in there with a mind and body bursting with energy and ideas, but a lack of direction (mainly courtesy of having unrecognised ADHD).  I came out subdued, lifeless, full of anxiety and fear about the future, and with hardly a thought to call my own, so well-indoctrinated had I been.  But hey!, I’d got the qualifications to get myself a job as some kind of clerical worker/typist.  Wow!  Dizzy heights, I know.  What a lot to look forward to, a lifetime of being trapped in an office, with people.

I’d had all of my dreams of being a writer, an artist, an athlete dismantled.  All gone by the wayside, all considered to be simply unrealistic daydreams, fantasies, the luxury of people with the money and time to indulge in them.  Childish.  Unattainable.  Out of my league.     Considered back then to be ‘hobbies’, and not something you could make a living from: not ‘real’ work.  

No, real work is the stuff that you do to make money; that makes you miserable; that isn’t supposed to be enjoyable; that you’re glad is over by the end of the day (like school).  If you’re enjoying it then you must be doing something wrong.

And because I couldn’t use them as a means to make a living, they quickly fell by the wayside, and I stopped doing them altogether once I left education (an autistic trait, I believe - seeing no reason to do something unless it has an end purpose: mere enjoyment is not enough).

So why would God make us all uniquely individual, bestow on us widely differing gifts and talents, and then expect us to cast them aside in favour of having to learn and master the same things (egs maths, science, computers/IT, languages), thus turning us into mass-produced automatons?  I guess the answer to that is that S/He doesn’t - man does that.

Imagine all those remarkable people who have lived unique and highly creative lives, not conforming to the ‘norm’, who have produced so much incredible stuff.  How would our world look now if they’d all been forced to go through an education system designed to make them conform, and to remove their individuality?  If they’d been forced to live an ‘average’ life, making worldly goods and achievements their goals?  Doesn’t bear thinking about really, does it?  We’d still be living in the dark ages - literally, ‘cos no-one would have had the foresight to use their imagination to come up with the concept of electricity.  

We’d all still be relying on the sun, living in caves, chasing wild animals, and procreating.  Mind you, sounds preferable to the life of an ‘average’ person now - living in a shoebox-sized home, with paper-thin walls, and crammed like sardines in a tin; and working in a shoebox-sized office, with paper-thin or no walls at all, crammed in like sardines.  And people wonder why we have so many health problems when we live such an unnatural existence.  Are they mad?

Critical Art Bypass

So.... I’ve been suffering for my art just lately.... again (claps hand wanly to forehead, and sighs deeply in an affected manner.  Not really.  But I could be doing). 

Every so often I feel myself filled with an over-abundance of self-doubt about my ability - usually when I’m beginning, in the middle of, or finishing a painting.  So that’s approximately every time I pick up a pencil or a paintbrush, then.

But this time I seem to have been filled with even more than the usual amount.  It’s not even as if I’m experimenting with anything different.  No, I did that with the last painting, when I took the plunge and delved into the world of mixed mediums (and no, that’s not a reference to confused spiritualists).  I’m not even trying to paint anything unusual.

Yet, for some reason, I have got it into my head that the way I paint is now no longer any good, and it’s time to move on up the artistic ladder (hopefully not getting distracted and falling off half-way up), develop my technique, and start painting the way other people do it – ‘other people’ meaning ‘proper’ artists. 

You know, the kind who wear smocks and get paint everywhere, who have studios (or at least a space in which to permanently leave out all of their artistic equipment), use an easel, and have a collection of brushes that would have drastically reduced the sable population (or, at least, the tail end, since that’s where the hair comes from, out of which the brushes are made).  Oh, and who’ve had basic instruction in watercolour techniques.  And I forgot to mention the ‘seriously proper’ artists – the ones who live in a garret, and eat, drink, breathe, sleep, and suffer their art.

Not people like me, who don’t wear smocks or special clothes ‘cos, basically, I am the neatest painter in the world.  Even my tubes of paint are clean, and sit in an orderly manner in their original box.  And, given the size of my home, I have to paint at my kitchen table, which means there’s no room for me to leave things lying around – unless I want to risk getting food all over my art.  I guess it could be a new art-form – painting with mung dal.  Mind you, someone’s probably already done it; and it would be so messy (which, as you may have gathered, is something I don’t much care for).

Nor do I have an easel – just a multi-functional, drop-leaf kitchen table.  But then I don’t do ‘big’ art: you won’t find me attempting to paint a masterpiece on a life-size canvas.  Good thing, too, or I’d be crowded out within a month.

As to my brush collection, it would probably be considered a little on the sparse side, and devoid of all the relevant equipment (since I have very little idea as to what I “should” be painting with – other than it should look like a stick with some soft bristles sticking out the end).  The sables can breathe a deep sigh of relief with me around, especially as I’ve recently decided to go the vegan route and buy synthetic instead.  I hadn’t realised that they actually kill the animals for their tail hair, as well as their pelts which are used in other goods.  I really don’t want ANYONE suffering for my art. 

Which kinda excludes me from the ‘seriously proper’ art set: although I do tend to do a lot of suffering – just not quite in the dying-in-a-garret style.  For one thing, I love my food and my sleep too much to give it up for painting (although I can lose interest in the one and be deprived of the other when I get seriously obsessed about something).  And for another, I’m just too flighty and easily distracted.  I’d get bored if I had to spend all of my days just doing art.  I’d want to do wood-whittling, or stonemasonry.  Vincent Van Gogh I definitely am not.

All of which is tediously familiar territory.  I have the same doubts about everything I do.  I’m not a ‘proper’ writer because I haven’t written a book yet; I don’t own an extensive library; I don’t read ‘proper’ grown-up literature (‘Winnie-the-Pooh’, and ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ are what my tastes run to: along with an occasional foray into the ebook world of erotic romance literature, with which I seem to have developed a peculiar fascination just lately.)

I’m not a member of a writer’s group; I don’t read extensively (except when I go off on one of my web-trawls, and end up reading anything that pops into my view); and I certainly don’t have a study, with a ‘proper’ desk, at which to do my ‘proper’ writing – something I thought at one time was an absolute necessity, if I was ever going to become a ‘proper’ author.  As if I’d ever get any writing done, sitting in a room surrounded by shelves filled with books from floor to ceiling! 

Now I sit at my laptop, which sits on a desk that used to be a dressing-table, which stands in my living room: and I’m as happy as a seaside donkey wearing a bonnet.

I’m also not a “proper” craftswoman ‘cos my homemade cards look... well... home made.  I think that I’m supposed to be aiming for having them look ‘professional’, like the glossy, mass-produced things that you get in card-shops.  Except then I wouldn’t actually be able to describe them as being either home or hand-made – which kind of defeats the object, really. 

And as for yoga....  I just feel myself to be a fraud half the time, when I refer to myself as a yogi.  I’ve never been to a class, I don’t ‘hang’ or even speak with other yogis, yet I’ve somehow managed to bumble through teaching myself with the sole aid of a book (two books, to be precise, by the same author: ‘Introducing Yoga’, and ‘Yoga In Practice’, by Katy Appleton – beginners, and more advanced).  As a consequence of which, I have probably taken a lot longer to progress than your average yoga student – what with the added impediment of trying to follow a book with an autistic brain ( I mean that I have the brain, not the book, of course!)   

Then there’s the fact that, unlike the ‘proper’ people who do ‘proper’ yoga in their ‘proper’ yoga clothes at their ‘proper’ yoga classes or in their ‘proper’ sacred yoga spaces in their homes, I do mine in my kitchen.  Yes – my kitchen.  That multi-purpose room where nearly everything creative I do gets done. 

My kitchen is my sacred space – a sanctuary to which I can retreat and enjoy the calming influence of yoga... done to the accompaniment of the fridge-freezer merrily gurgling away when it decides to kick into gear; the gas boiler firing up every five minutes; the dulcet tones (I’m being ironic here) of my downstairs neighbour drifting up through the floorboards to gently caress my eardrums, along with the heavenly aroma of his cigarette smoke encompassing me as it, too, insinuates its way into my flat; and the heavy bass of my next door neighbour’s music filtering through the walls, when he has a musical moment.    

And not for me a statue of Shiva, Krishna, or even a Buddha to meditate upon and salute to during the Sun Salutation.  Oh no.  When I bow down, I do so to the ever-present figure of my Hoover Optima Wash System1600 washing machine (they do say cleanliness is next to godliness, do they not?)  And I wonder why my journey is taking so long, when I’m surrounded by such an abundance of distractions?

So no, there’s nothing ‘proper’ about me.  I’m not even a ‘proper’ person, being autistic and all.  But I keep giving it a jolly good try.  And, in an attempt to move myself up into the ranks of the “proper” artists’ set, I have been on a wild goose-chase for the last couple of weeks, surfing the internet, trying to find out how to do watercolour painting ‘properly’, whilst not doing any actual watercolour painting at all (it’s my favourite avoidance technique, looking on the web). 

And you know what I found?  A lot of convoluted confusion, which just added to my anxiety about picking up a paintbrush again.  As my friend frequently tells me, the internet is not designed for me, and the answers are not ‘out there’ on the world wide web.  Nor are they to be found in a book, or on a DVD, or in a class.  The answer is to simply pick up a brush and just paint, and trust the process: stop analysing exactly how do you paint, which does nothing but bring me to a grinding halt whilst my mind kicks into obsessive gear. 

I have nineteen paintings to prove that I can paint (most of them on my walls, and all done within the space of a week – that’s how long I’ve ACTUALLY been painting, when you add up the art time I’ve had in my timetable over the last year and a half): but do I look at them as a reminder of what I’ve achieved, and that I can do it?  Nope.  I look at them and worry that I won’t be able to repeat the process again.    

So now I’m proper pissed-off with the whole bloody world of trying to do it properly, when it turns out there isn’t really a proper way to do anything anyway – just a lot of different peoples’ versions of what they all think is proper.  And, to be perfectly honest, I’m not even sure I know what ‘proper’ means anyway, in this context – other than ‘the way that everyone else does it, which isn’t the way that I do it.’ 

Therefore, I shall go forth and continue to bumble through with my improper manner, and trust that it’ll all come right in the end.  Or not.  As the case may be.  Depending on how you want to look at things.  Perhaps there’s a proper way to look at things that I’m missing out on...?   

Art Failure!

Oh dear, I’ve discovered something which gives me a justifiable reason for hoarding rubbish – it’s called ART! More precisely, it’s crafts. And, to be even more specific, at the moment it’s actually papier mache. Prior to this it was decoupage – I was going to decoupage everything in sight: I still might do so once this obsession has worn off. In fact I can even combine the two things and decoupage my papier mached creations – how great is that?! Well, it would be if I could ever take the plunge and make a start on the bloody thing!

I love making things, but what I seem to love even more is collecting stuff with which to be creative, and obsessively thinking and reading about the activity. I’ve already come up with half a dozen ideas for what to make with this particular craft form, not to mention having rescued numerous materials which would normally get thrown in the recycling bin. I’ve even bought the additional necessary items required to get going (the flour for making the paste, and balloons for the first easy project). All this, plus having deluged myself with research on-line about how to make paste, how to make pulp (how many different recipes for making the same paste and pulp does one person need?!), what techniques to use, and numerous inspirational guidelines for what to make. Noah’s flood was a light shower compared to this!

And yet I continue to look and, in the process, manage to avoid taking the BIG LEAP of having a go myself. It also has the contrary effect of dampening my enthusiasm for the whole idea, as it starts to get more and more complicated - whose advice is the best?; which instructions should I follow?; how am I ever going to be able to make anything like the things I’ve seen created by other people on some of these sites?; what if it doesn’t work?; should I even bother?!

Ah yes, it’s the Cycle Of Doom! It’s the way I approach everything new (and not-so-new) in life, especially when it’s something that’s meant to be enjoyable. It seems to go like this:-

 First we have a spark (or conflagration!) of interest in a new idea or activity;

 Then the fire gets fuelled by plenty of petrol (meaning I start thinking, reading, talking, and dreaming about it all the time – commonly known as obsessing!);

 I “plan” to do it (this is my version of a plan, which means a kind of vague wandering in my mind going over the instructions again and again, and, if required for chosen activity, start buying or hoarding things for it – one of my favourite parts of the whole process!);

 And then I procrastinate about making a start, as I worry about how and where to begin, what the end result will be like, whether I can actually do it, whether I’ve understood the instructions properly, what a waste of materials it will be if I get it wrong, what will I do with it if I get it right, where will I house all my creative efforts (having, as I do, very little space to spare, and visualising being snowed under in an avalanche of solidified paper!), what will I do instead of this if I discover that I either don’t enjoy it or am useless at it, and what will I do for my next project if I ever get this one finished! As you may have noticed from my list of worries there’s no logical progression from one to another, and they generally all descend on me together – it’s like being mugged by a bunch of dufflepuds! (For amplification please read ‘The Voyage Of The Dawntreader’ by C S Lewis.);

 By this time I’m almost in a state of meltdown, my whole happiness has become dependent upon the success (or otherwise) of my ability to make a bowl out of a few bits of newspaper stuck onto a balloon: everything else in the world has paled into insignificance, to the point that if I don’t manage to prevail then all the meaning to my life will be lost and, basically, there will remain no reason to go on.
You think I jest? You think I exaggerate? If you’re non-autistic you probably do: if you’re autistic you’ll likely know what I’m talking about and know that I don’t, that it’s no laughing matter .... at least, not while it’s happening!;

 Then finally, after reaching a crescendo of anticipatory dread and anxiety (with, if I’m lucky, possibly a smidgeon of excitement lurking guiltily in the background!), the magic moment materialises and I take the plunge. Well, actually, it’s more like dipping a toe timorously in the water, in case something hideous is hiding ready to leap out and get me – like, perhaps, an unforeseen bout of enthusiasm!

So, there’s the Cycle: and here’s the really thrilling thing – I get to go through it with every single project I undertake! Yes, every time I come to the end of making one article I have the great good fortune to have to endure the exact same process, with no omissions, for the next creation. There’s no “once you’ve taken the plunge the first time, the next will be easier” for me. No: I’m always wary of sticking my toe in the water, even when it’s the same water and I’ve been keeping a check on it to make sure that no-one changes it or introduces something untoward during a moment when I might have been off my guard – people are like that, you know, always wanting to tweak things!


BREAKING NEWS!!! AUTISTIC WOMAN TAKES PLUNGE INTO PAPIER MACHE!!!

Not literally, of course, but yes I have made a start and, in the attempt, braved the Cycle of Doom 2 – The Revenge! Yes, this is where, having survived the first, I’m hit by the Second Wave of Doom – very similar to the original, with just slight modifications to take into account the fact that I’m now doing, rather than just thinking about doing, whichever activity it is that I’m trying to avoid!

I’ve also discovered that I can’t blow up a balloon! Seriously: I have seemingly forgotten how to do it. The instructions, simple as they are, just don’t compute. I know I used to be able to do it, but it seems that, as with all things connected with being an Asperger, if I don’t keep up a consistent practise then, for some bizarre reason, I forget how to do it (I swear I’d forget how to breathe properly if I didn’t have to think about it for yoga!). And since balloon-blowing hasn’t played much part in my life, not really being a necessary skill for living (unless you have children, are one of those balloon artists who make strange shapes out of them for a living, or do papier bloody mache!), the technique has deserted me. Which is a bit of a bugger considering that it now appears to be a requisite for my newly-acquired interest in the paper mashing arts. I’ll just have to buy a balloon pump – it’s either that or go around asking people if they can blow up a balloon for me; and then I’d have to explain to them that I don’t mean that I want them to use an explosive to blast the thing to smithereens – just in case they’re literal too!

So I’ve ended up having to use a bowl to make, of all things, a bowl! And I’ve also ended up having to dispense with most of the ‘rubbish’ that I’d managed to accumulate in the space of a week because it turns out to be not very useful. This should come as no surprise, really, as I also have an innate ability for being incapable of knowing what’s important and what isn’t, which translates as being able to dispense with what matters whilst holding on like a limpet to what doesn’t! So I think that, in an attempt to copy the Egyptians, I shall have all of my most treasured worldly goods buried with me to take into the afterlife – which means that I’ll be surrounded by papier mache sculptures and, rather than bury me, someone will just need to strike a match and I’ll go up in flames. Performance art!