It's already August, and my portfolio for 2025 is looking very thin indeed... 😬
This year I have only finished two paintings. I have a third on the easel right now, but I haven't touched it for a few months - it's looking kind of ugly colour-wise at the moment and I haven't had the confidence to work through this phase and take it to the beautiful side, just in case I make it worse...
Lol, I saved this one off Instagram to remind me I should laugh about my fears and insecurities!
Anyway, I'm not too worried about my unproductive art year; I'm choosing to see it as a personal 'winter' season - a season where the growth is happening internally, and in invisible ways. Late last year I received a diagnosis of ADHD and I realised that I am also autistic. This happened quite suddenly and unexpectedly - like many late-diagnosed neurodivergent adults, the recognition of my own struggles, my request for assessment, and consequent diagnosis, were byproducts of my son's ADHD assessment.
I've spent the past 8 months pretty well consumed with my need to learn and understand better the autistic and ADHD brain, trialling various medications with varying forms of success/distress, and a huge amount of my energy has been channeled into reflecting on my life thus far, and reframing many memories and beliefs about myself that were formed since my earliest years in ignorance of the fact that my way of experiencing things is really quite different from the majority of people around me. I also find myself thinking about how I can rewrite my expectations of my future, in a way that is more sustainable and manageable than all the plans I've had for myself until now - plans which I have struggled, if not to realise, but to sustain in the context of declining health.
I now feel more sure than ever that I want to move my art practice forward in a way that is wholly my own, trusting my own intuition and moving forward in a direction and at a pace that is uniquely mine. I feel reassured that my bursts of productivity and inspiration, which are invariably followed by quiet and tiredness, are not signs of inconsistency but are cyclical and natural, and something that I shouldn't feel compelled to fight against.
I'm hoping to somehow showcase my current collection of work to the public within the next 12 months, but how exactly, I haven't quite figured out yet. I'll be sure to keep you posted here though. I look forward to showing you a finished painting of cherry blossoms when I'm ready to tackle this current work-in-progress! ❤
Esther
