My Journal

Learning difficulties and art
 
I guess I can count myself lucky that my learning difficulties are relatively minor.  Nevertheless, I am dyspraxic and at times, especially as a child and teenager, I was self-conscious and embarrassed by its effects.  But back then it didn’t have a name or an identity.  So mostly I was considered clumsy and slow as a child, lazy and indifferent as a teenager and somewhat detached as a third level student.
 
That’s how others saw me.  Inside, I often felt lost and isolated as I struggled to keep up, often interpreting things differently to other people.  Simply having two conversations happening at once within a group was enough to get all my wires crossed!  As a result, I became more self-conscious in company.  This in turn led to lack of confidence as well as low self-esteem, which I now know to be common in people with learning difficulties.
 
Then I began to realise that with hard work and an acceptance that it may take twice the time it took everyone else, I was able to get the results I wanted.  Yet I continued to find life challenging in so many ways and at times extremely frustrating.  Art became my safe place. 
 
It was a comment from a tutor at art college in the U.S. that made me begin to realise there might be an explanation for my difficulties.  The class had been asked to paint and anonymously submit a fantasy landscape for critique.  The tutor singled mine out immediately and said, “Well whoever did this is dyslexic.”  While he wasn’t exactly right, he did recognise that there was something different in the way that I saw things.  This prompted me to look further.  I made some enquiries, was given the appropriate tests and informed that I was dyspraxic, not dyslexic as he had thought.  I’d never heard of it!
 
This was a break-through and a turning point for me.  I was so relieved to be told that what I had was a recognised condition, that it had a name!  I wasn’t lazy or stupid and it wasn’t my fault.  I realise how childish this may sound, but I was still a child when I was dealing with the worst of these issues and our inner child never really goes away.
 
Afterwards, it became easier to accept the difficulties and I began to recognise those situations that caused me stress and avoided them whenever possible.  I began to spend more time painting and gradually built up a regular work practice.
 
The decision to move house, location and studio four years ago brought back some of those old anxieties.  Only this time I decided to use it as an opportunity for a little constructive self-criticism.  I began to look at how my dyspraxia influences the way I work as an artist, both in my daily practice and in how I see and interpret the world around me.
 
I’ve been considering how the end-result when I’m creating a painting can be so different from my ideas at the beginning.  Examining my process led me to realise that, despite often meticulous preparation and planning using images and sketch books, my mind simply doesn’t work in sequential steps, which leads me to believe that planning in any formal sense, for me at least, is a futile exercise.
 
While this realisation in one sense is liberating, it poses a further challenge:  how do I then develop a body of work that hangs together in a cohesive way? 
 
Well, it all involves a huge leap of faith.  I need to let go and put my trust in the creative process, at times chaotic, in order to bring a piece to its finished state.  I need to recognise when a work is done; the moment when it resonates, and I believe it has something to say to both me and the viewer.
 
My fascination with painting has always been around how artists use colour in all its values to create light and depth.  This remains my focus and bigger end-goal when creating work. 
 
Along the way it is necessary to explore different avenues to do with mark-making, design, and the use of colour.  I now realise that understanding my dyspraxia is also an important part of that learning.
 
Finally, I believe that far more people struggle with learning difficulties throughout their lives than we may ever know.  Some unfortunately suffer badly as a consequence.  I consider myself to be one of the lucky ones to have found an escape valve in creativity.
 
 
Caroline
March 31st, 2023