I'm currently reframing my art practice.

As I see it, before my diagnosis I was trying to be the person everyone else wanted me to be so if I wasn't being my true self then it appears that my theoretical framework and indeed my art were also an effort to please.

So here I am now, five years post diagnosis, enjoying textiles and the odd bit of drawing wondering how to develop it further. The old rusty framework is still there but a new set of values and influences need to be darned in. As I can't get out much most of my viewing of others work comes via books, the internet, and handling old textiles that I've collected. It's the theoretical stuff I'm getting into at the moment.

I hadn't thought much about the difficulties I was having until a friend said to me that I was experiencing disablement. I found a gem of a book, 'Why are you pretending to be normal' by Phil Friend and Dave Rees that is about the language we use. This is not an academic book, it's not meant to be. It is a widely accessible for most readers. I'm in the process of taking what it suggests on board. In the meantime I've started to ponder how much the sensory impairments I have impact on my art/craft practice. I'm dipping into texts on phenomenology, postmodernism, poststructualism, feminism and disability theory...and it's making sense!

It's important to me to understand why I do what I do so these new developments are exciting.

Bye for now :)