After the birth of my second child I became a stay at home mother. When home alone with small children, one has the opportunity to confront the depths of self. I was surprised to discover at that stage in my life, that an immense well of creativity lurked deep inside of me. How could I not know I was a creative person? I loved art as a child, but never pursued it, like many, because it was not encouraged. My thoughts and imagination always swirled like crazy storms in my head. I always struggled to focus and was someone who became quickly bored with most pursuits. My swirling brain always made me feel inadequate, until I attended art school in my 40’s and a fellow classmate said “that’s how most creative brains work”. What I thought was a lifelong issue with attention deficit disorder, was actually my creative energy looking for expression. My brain swirls in tornado like form, churning out reams of chaos, debris, and creative treasures, all intertwined like the worst knot of hair, or tangled ball of jewellery. I think attention deficit is deemed a disorder because it clashes with our highly structured, deeply conformist, left-brained culture. If you take a swirling brain out of that context, and pass no judgement, you see that it’s a way of operating that can have powerful creative energy driving it. Most fail to appreciate this in kids. No wonder we fail to see it in ourselves as adults. Tornado brain drives the best of us into the arts, often multi media art, because we can’t stick to just one thing. That would be boring. If you struggle with this kind of brain…maybe you need to start making things and finding a way to express what’s going on inside that tornado. I bet you it’s far more interesting than you ever imagined.
