ADHD and lost Creative opportunities
A Creative angle
This is what i see the moment i open my eyes in the morning! Just this morning I noticed it and thought “How lucky am i to be greeted by this riot of joyful colour the moment i open my little peepers!”
Beyond the screen (which i painted many years ago) is an alcove with draped hand dyed fabric. Notice the orb there? I wonder who it is?
Years ago when i had High School teenagers come through the Magic Cottage for tours one kid asked me if i was on ACID when i painted all of the bright colours on the walls. Today I’m sure the same kid might ask if i was on crack 
. I remember replying that No……i simply LOVE colour! Colour makes me happy!
ADHD and missed Creative Opportunities
Yesterday afternoon i was happily creating these background pages for possible inclusion in a book on art journaling……..
As you know i really love this Dr. Seuss quote and have used it before. This is a small page – 5×7 inches.
Here are the two small pages i created. Because i am pretty certain i have attention deficit disorder I have embarked on a self-discovery journey where I’m reading everything i can on the disorder to better understand myself. These pages were about to be mailed off EXPRESS which means it would probably cost me 20 dollars to mail rather than a couple of dollars had i been on time and completed these pages earlier on. People with ADD tend to procrastinate, wait until the last minute to complete projects which has certainly been my Modus Operandi!
Just before mailing off these pieces which took me about a day to complete – i checked the instructions for the submission and noticed that the pages are to be in landscape format NOT portrait which is what i am used to doing. Needless to say i almost cried when i read the guidelines. I often read things wrong or skip over stuff. I rarely read instructions correctly and whenever someone gives me driving directions I zone out and end up getting lost.
I’m going through a bit of a grieving phase as i realize how i have been unfairly judged in the past as a child and adult. I was labeled “lazy” “clumsy”, “directionally challenged”, “slow learner”, “ditzy”, “scattered”, “disorganized” etc. When i went back to College in my mid thirties i had to work 3 times as hard as the other students when it came to studying for exams. Unbeknownst to me I used a few different modalities to study – writing and highlighting key points in my text books, speaking into a tape recorder and colour coding recipe cards with key points. I ended up getting decent grades only because of the monumental effort I gave.
Now i see all of my missed opportunities in the art world because of this disorder. I should be much farther ahead of the game by now – i should maybe have another book out, maybe even a product line as well as more licensing deals. When i ask myself what is it that i want I can’t honestly tell you right now. That’s another sign of the disorder – lack of clarity and fuzzy thinking. The frontal lobe of the brain is under developed and not working properly hence problems with organization, attention, distraction, fidgetiness, and memory.
Right now i don’t have any answers…….if you read this far into my rant you deserve a cookie .
Sorry about the rant! Tomorrow will surely be a better day.
Love, Violette xo
. Whenever i create videos it’s very difficult for me to do so. I struggle with the music too – what music goes with which clips. There is an art to it that’s for sure.
I truly believe this. 
. A friend and i spent 15 hours drilling holes and adding beads with wires to the openings. The light shining through makes the beads sparkle!
