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We want to hear from you: please tell us about your experience of the online community.

I'd like to hear about the potential blockers to creativity those with disabilities face

Sam_Wordsmith

Nice to meet you all!

I'm here to educate myself on the potential blockers to creativity those with disabilities face. Would be so happy to hear about any experiences of barriers to creating art (of any kind!) from anyone here. Also keen to hear if anyone has used creativity in some way to help them face any issues in their life (as sort of a creative therapy!)

Thanks and looking forward to chatting with you

Sam x

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Comments

Danielle_2022

Hi @Sam_Wordsmith,
First of all, it's so nice to hear that you're here for educational purposes. That's something I'll always welcome! I have Quadriplegic Cerebral Palsy, so for me, there's always been a physical barrier to creativity. More specifically, what my hands can and can't do. However, I do know that there is an increasing number of adaptive technology/equipment for this nowadays, which is exciting. I used a lot of Play Doh during physiotherapy as a child, which is one idea! Good for my hands and not too fiddly!

SueHeath

Hi @Sam_Wordsmith welcome to the group,
I do not fall in this category, but it sounds very interesting.

Sam_Wordsmith

@Danielle_2022 so nice to hear from you! Nice to meet you and thanks for sharing your perspective. I enjoy Play Doh too, so therapeutic. I see you're a writer! What kind of writing do you do? x

Sam_Wordsmith

@SueHeath keen to chat with anyone about creativity really! What do you do to get creative? (Whether it's getting out into nature and looking around, painting or cooking! 'Creativity' is very subjective in my books!

Tori_Scope

Hi @Sam_Wordsmith

Welcome to the community, and thank you for making your first post!

I was just wondering whether you were asking as part of a piece of research or project you're working on, or whether you're asking more generally?

Sam_Wordsmith

Hi @Tori_Scope, this is a more general question. I genuinely want to know what barriers are out there rather than making my own assumptions. Personally, I am neurodiverse and I've learned my own coping mechanisms with work and creativity and it was only the other day when we were discussing what my needs are that I started wondering what needs others have when it comes to creativity!

Tori_Scope

That's totally fine, I just wanted to check @Sam_Wordsmith

Perhaps you could share a little more about your own experiences with neurodiversity and creativity. I'd be interested in hearing about them!

APHRODITESHEART

MORNING!
I UNDERSTAND TOTALLY. BEFORE I BECAME STUCK IN AN HORIZONTAL POSITION, I REALLY ENJOYED PAINTING WITH ACRYLIC PAINTS.. I HAVE TRIED TO DRAW ON A TABLET BUT I FIND THE STYLUS AND GETTING THE WEIGHTING CORRECT VERY DIFFICULT. THE SOFTWARE IS NOT INTUITIVE FOR MYSELF. THE DROP DOWNS HAVE TEENY WEENY ICONS. I AGREE THAT NEGOTIATING WITH FATIGUE IS AN HURDLE.

Danielle_2022

@Sam_Wordsmith,
I'd also like to hear more about your experiences with neurodiversity and how it influences your creative expression! In terms of writing, I'm mostly focused on disability issues in general at the moment. I think the next piece that I plan to write will cover medical trauma

Sam_Wordsmith

Hi! I'm in awe reading these comments. It's so inspiring to see what tools and ideas some of you are playing with to be creative. A few of you have asked me to share my experience, and mine is from an ADHD and Dyslexic slant. The thing I've always struggled most with is my working memory! I'm forever having to ask people if they'll be okay with me recording meetings in case my memory bank just zaps important pieces of the conversation. There's no point in me taking notes either, as when I look back at them, they often don't make sense! Recording the meetings really help because I can go back and listen in my own time, pausing and replaying certain bits that I'm struggling to process until I understand it. Having an app like Otter.ai that transcribes the audio helps too, as I can find keywords from long meetings and skip to those.

This issue really got in the way of me being able to read music or remember lyrics on stage, but I often found ways around it - putting the lyrics somewhere where I could see them or visualising the story of the song in my head, but the anxiety of having a memory blank stressed me out! Even though I often couldn't read music, I could make up a song with rhyming lyrics in the space of five minutes. Which, if given the choice, I'd rather have the ability to do!

I have Fibromyalgia, so my challenge with fatigue and muscle pain is also a huge distraction. It's so interesting that you love cooking @bekindalways and I wonder if, because you love it, it takes your mind off the pain temporarily? When I sit at the piano and record songs, I definitely go into such a tunnelvision with the creativity that I definitely distract myself from my pain!

Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences with me

Leo_Aces

Hi @Sam_Wordsmith, I’m quite new here as a volunteer but I came across your thread and wanted to contribute.

I have Dyskinetic Cerebral Palsy. I've never really thought of myself as an artist but others say the contrary.

I combine life modelling with diversity speaking, focusing on disability and sexuality. I find that inviting people to draw my body with the different shapes and angles that my involuntary movements present, is both a unique learning experience for the artists and very empowering for me. Whilest I model, I discuss my lived experiences of having Cerebral Palsy and how we as a society still have a way to go around how we see bodies with physical disabilities as been desirable.

I suppose my artistic tendences lay in my writing (I keep a blog and have a YouTube channel). I think it's so important that whatever form our different abilities take, we have the freedom to express ourselves artistically.