She tried her best?
to survive
to reclaim what was lost
to feel important
to find a reason to be
to exist outside control
to control her own
to not be small
at any expense.
Neurodiversity and process
I process life and information slowly and deeply (processing disorder).
Numbers and time are meaningless to me (dyscalculia).
I have routines and am hyper-organized to overcome the difficulty of keeping on top of the day-to-day. Because I have no sense of time. And because doing more than one thing at a time, dealing with more than one input at a time, is like turning a fire hose on me. So I use pattern thinking to predict what will happen so that I don’t get overwhelmed, to keep on track. And I do one thing at a time, one thing very very well at a time. My brain is beautifully messy. Adding to that a mess on the outside just sends me into overload. And me in overload, is. not. pretty. Hot desking, open office plans, ARGH!
I consume massive amounts of disparate information, that takes me several passes and iterations to fully absorb, to understand how the pieces fit together. I need to understand the whole to be able to understand the pieces, to then turn information into actionable insights. Sadly much education and research is structured around understanding specific pieces rather than connecting and understanding them in the context of the larger whole. The time it takes me means that we'll be having long-running conversations. Because I've been mulling over and processing what was said the entire time in between. I'm still in a conversation with a friend about the value of vocals in music from 15 years ago.
Going deep, processing slowly, means that context switching is not seamless. Transitions take me time. Sometimes, ok often, they are not fun. For anyone. I will miss information, what was said, and... getting pulled out of my mental flow is like being blindsided by a Mack Truck. A shock to the system and not pretty. With a bit of warning, I can swerve.
Being put on the spot is one of my worst nightmares. Unless I’ve had time, and several passes within iterations, to absorb all the information I need… and am currently in the mental zone of whatever topic want me to speak eloquently on…. I’m going to panic. And fail. I have very little working memory and often say the wrong words out loud when the right ones are in my brain all along. The words “she said it was a breeze” might come out of my mouth when in my head it was "she said it was torture". In writing, words get left out and typos are made. And I won't catch them until the 3rd or 4th -ish re-reading. Autocorrect actually makes this worse.
When the world moves at a pace closer to life’s natural rhythms (I grew up on a farm), when the expectations of perfection and high productivity for ever-increasing profit’s sake are not at the insane levels they are now, when life is more organic and less mechanical, I do fine. I can and do learn deep and complex concepts, take in information and connect them into deep insights. I sort through ideas, organize them and plan out what I’ll say. I’ll correct the mistakes in type with time to decompress mentally in between re-readings. Time in between to mentally decompress -to work with my hands- is as essential as planning, prep, and iterations. Processing data tactilely also helps each iteration be better than the last.
Understanding and accepting that, and how I approach questions and problems, becomes much clearer. Make no mistake, I am capable, sharp, and quick-witted. It's taken me my whole life to realize this and be able to say out loud. It still feels weird to say to others. So many years of feeling average, incapable, or not terribly quick. Thankfully I've realized that my processing disorder is "normal", not a dis-order at all, and is a lens that has led me to researching lived expereinces.
I love exploratory research, especially when it reframes how we think about – everything. How does that look, what does that feel like, why? It’s open-ended – following observations to questions, and questions to observations, absorbing context and meaning in the experiential data along the way. Taking apart specific linear bits within a process, turning them about to analyze and connect back to the whole. The process is neither linear nor predictive. That’s the point. And the beauty. Not only does it mirror my own neurology, it’s how life actually is.
And reflecting life as it actually is lived, is the goal of research, no?
(Dear Milton,) You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
We are at an uneasy moment in social history. On the precipice, looking around and seeing that despite all appearances… something just isn't quite right. But what to do about it?
This installation is a slice of our time, suspended, boundaries fluid, straddling the line of what is and what is possible. One at a time, participants become co-authors of that line between how we are and how we could be, together.
Installation Artifacts
Endlessly curious about connection and disconnection, I stumbled across work by The Trailblazery in Ireland. Their Census of the Heart asked how Ireland was feeling at the time of the national census. The results were interesting, especially on feeling cherished. Women of working age, in cities, reported feeling less cherished in society and families than older women. The difference was even more striking in language groups with Gaelic speakers feeling more cherished than English speakers. So many questions…but the biggest is why?
I also got to wondering, given what’s going on in the UK, how Scotland was feeling. What is like to live in Scotland at this moment in time? Might folks in Scotland be feeling similarly? And of course, why or why not? And so the Heartbeat on Scotland project was born. Which starts with a survey to ask, What does being in Scotland at this moment in time feel like? Conversations over tea, performing being, together, with willing folks will follow, to get more into the whys, to really get a good sense of how respondents define what they are feeling, what it looks like. The product will be an art work that reflects, explores, and interprets what I’ve heard into a visual and interactive experience.
The survey is currently up in English, Scots, and Gàidhlig. It's open to anyone 16+ who lived in Scotland. At the moment there's just under 200 responses in English and only a handful in Scots and Gàidhlig. I hope to have more representation across languages by this summer when I’ll be digging into the data and contacting folks for a chat. So if you live in Scotland, or know someone who does, pass the survey along. That’d be awesome of you. And stay tuned...
Surreality: Modern Woman : Opportunity
Recent duh! moment; the Little Boxes* and Surreality: Modern Woman themes are related
insert *forehead slap* here.
The song played over and over in my head while working out the sculpture for Surreality: Modern Woman. What if… the song played while the same image repeated over and over? Might that reinforce the message? And if that happened to be a flip animation, then it could lend to an interactive experience. A heavy-handed experience, but interactive all the same.
And so, we have… Surreality: Modern Woman : Opportunity
The installation, and the video. Please take the opportunity to critical examine a cultural myth and decide if conforming to this version of reality is for you.
*a huge thank you to Nancy Schimmel, Malvina Reynolds's daughter, for permission to use the song Little Boxes.
Putting together the last bits to finish off a fun, and emotional, project. Time Exchange is meant to express the mental disconnect we feel at times from a physical routine, punching in and clocking out.
The wonderful antique punch clock I found in a coal mining Pennsylvania was just inspiration needed to finally do something with xeroxes of my head from 20 years ago. Bored silly at a banking temp job in my early 20s, I snuck into a copy room and xeroxed my head. Not just once, but three times.
The punch clock, which is also an emotional connection to prior generations of my family who worked in the mines in that area of Pennsylvania, inspired creating videos of physically punching in while mentally clocking out. I can't even imagine what punching into the mine must of felt like to my great-grandfather, his father, brothers, uncles, and father-in-law. As immigrants at the turn of the 20th century, it was steady work if dangerous and back breaking. It's easy to imagine they'd rather be elsewhere and also were in their minds.
Time Exchange as a whole piece will be the punch clock on a pedestal with the video playing above it, one of the xeroxes printed on brushed aluminum also on the wall above, and definitions of time exchange and disconnection on the wall to the right of the lot. Ideally you'll be able to participate, but that depends on the venue.
Look for Time Exchange at TAG's annual Le Salon Show in Frederick, MD this summer. The show runs August 4th - 27th with the opening on August 5th from 5-9pm. See you there!
Just set up the exposure unit for a first attempt at burning silk screens. If all goes okay after a few tries it's a next step in the Surreality | Modern Woman project.
By creating screens of elements from the original photo, I hope to convey a feeling of replication. The screens will display alongside the original image and the help wanted sign I've created as the finished piece.
Fingers crossed it works as intended, or better.
