ADHD - lost my creative juices

[janesays]

SO IM an Art major at my university. It is my third year. I haven't even begun my studio spec. courses yet. I am just finishing up my gen eds.

I still paint but my subject matter has changed since highschool. All the art that I do is about space, form, line and structure. There's no free flowing movements. Plus I am so damn picky about how my work looks that I start something...hate it...toss it...start something new...hate it... you get the idea

I can't seem to focus on my art like I once could. I lost my passion for it. It's become nothing but alot of frustration for me. I think this is because of the expectations I put on myself. I see others work and I think I can do better and I know I can I just haven't found my calling quite yet.

I'm in a funk. I think it has alot to do with my life situation. I just can't get over the blues I'm feeling.

I've also read some info about how ADD meds can effect your creativity. I don't know if this is true or not. I think they've definitley shaped my subject matter so to speak. It lacks spontinaity altogether. There's little meaning behind it. All I do is blocks and structures and space nothing else. Just emptiness.

[My Life ADDs Up]

Janesays,

I'm sorry. I don't have any advice to offer to help your creativity. I think the best thing at this point may just be to try and relax. Of course if you need your creativity for school, then that won't be as easy as it already doesn't seem.

I know I used to write a lot more when I was single and undiagnosed. My creativity never really went away so much as the time to be creative did. I got married two years ago, and now I have a 14 mo old daughter. I was writing a lot of poetry up until I got married. Since then I have written very little, and most of it was much more forced than heart.

Now I realize it was my free time that allowed me to day dream and fantasize that really helped my writing. That and being single I could turn off distractions. Once I built up momentum, I was even able to write at work between calls. Then I married, and I had 0 time alone. My wife needed and deserved attention. As a newlywed, this was no problem.

I learned though that I wasn't quite the romantic I thought I would be. I can't seem to write romantic poetry now that I'm married. This isn't because I don't love my wife or cherish our relationship, it's just because instead of dreaming I am doing whether a good day out together or the hum drum.

Maybe your current situation is just a temporary adjustment to treatment or new stresses. If school is forcing you to do what used to only be the result of inspiration, then you can relax. Most of what I read seems to say that the idea of lost creativity in treatment is a rumor. I am hoping so.

As for me, I have written a poem yesterday and today. They're not great, but it is better than anything I have written in a while. I think it's my treatment that is enabling me to focus on it enough to capitalize on less time where as before to write well meant I was mostly just writing in my free time.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. That worry may be the very thing that keeps you uninspired.

James

[caj]

I think creativity ebbs and flows. As a sporadic artist myself, I would try to focus on what things excite you and stir you towards energy. Do you think the meds are inhibiting you? You are the best judge of that. I would think that your subject matter would change as you do... so maybe you could search for a way to express the confusion in that growth...

[waywardclam]

This describes my writing to a T...

I hate to suggest it, but is there any way you can take a short break from art? Are you forced to keep doing it as part of schooling right now?

[exeter]

I think I found your creative juices. PM me your address, and I'll ship them back to you.

If you think maybe the meds are inhibiting you a bit, you might try going off them for a short time. If you're taking stims, that should be easy... just don't take them on weekends or at night when you want to work, or something. If you're on Strattera or some of the other drugs, it might not be so easy.

[janesays]

All my life I've been a dissapointment. To my family and mostly to myself. I set myself up for failure big time this semester and there's not much I can do about it unless I quit my job.

I bounce around from day to day giving a half ***** effort to school which is what really means the most to me. If I don't graduate college I am nothing. The reason I'm going to college is because I thought I had a gift. I'm not smart, I cant be an Accountant, or an Engineer, or a Psychologist. The one thing that made people notice me was my art. In highschool I could have been a ghost. I didn't talk I was quiet and shy and didn't have friends. Then one day I decided to take art. My teacher displayed my pictures in the hall. Most people take art as a sluff class so my art really stood out and people stopped in the hallway and amired it. It really boosted my self esteem. I felt like I existed again.

Imagine the world around you is a play and your the only one who didn't get a part. Instead you sit in the audience all alone. I have been familiar with this feeling for most of my life.

[crime_scene]

I had a time l like this when I was trying to write poetry...I was dry as the hills, so I wrote a poem to express what that felt like and it did get me started again.

How about if you try something similar, show your viewers how you are feeling, your frustration, your apathy, your deadness through your art???

[waywardclam]

Originally Posted by janesays

Imagine the world around you is a play and your the only one who didn't get a part. Instead you sit in the audience all alone. I have been familiar with this feeling for most of my life.

I know exactly how you feel...

[gingagirl]

Originally Posted by janesays

If I don't graduate college I am nothing. The reason I'm going to college is because I thought I had a gift. I'm not smart, I cant be an Accountant, or an Engineer, or a Psychologist.

Theories, formulas, science, "book smarts" are not the be all & end all of the world. There is a fairly new book called The Mind at Work that discusses the vast array of thought processes used by blue-collar workers. It talks about the need to reconsider our view of intelligence. Here is a link to some reviews on the book that explain all this better:
http://www.mikerosebooks.com/news.html
Even though the book is written about blue-collar workers, I think the general principles would apply to artists as well.

[gingagirl]

I agree with others about temporarily going off stimulant meds to see if they are affecting your creativity. I don't know about straterra or other types of meds --it's always best to talk with your doctor before making any changes. Tell your dr about your creativity concerns ...maybe there's a different med that would work better for you.

Depression can hinder/impair so many areas of a person's life ...could depression be squashing your creativity? If you are depressed, it might be worth considering meds for depression --although you might not see benefit from meds in time to recapture your creativity for your art courses this semester.

[bad]

... I know how you feel... I'm a glassblower by hobby... and try to sell stuff to put me through school...

I always had trouble, for fear of failure... something started going bad, and I chunked it immediately... better to not do it than to mess up, right?


then I red this book... lol, I can't think of the name of it... imagine that!

I'll ask my co-worker what the book was, and get back to you... it truly changed the way I felt about my art...

one of the quotes said something like...

"I took part in a college pottery class one time, in which the teacher had apparently set out to make a point. He divided the class into two groups: group A would be graded only on the AMOUNT of pottery produced, while group B only had to make ONE piece of pottery, but to get a good grade it had to be *perfect*. By the end of the class, the people in group A were much more skilled potters. It seems that while group B was sitting around hypothesizing about what a perfect piece of pottery would look like, group A was working hard and fast, putting out pieces, and learning from their mistakes."

now, rather than trying to create something perfect 100% of the time... I spend every week-day going for quantity when I'm at the torch... I put out piece after piece after piece, not worrying a bit about how they look... I just drive myself to put out as much as possible as fast as possible...

on weekends, though, I just try to have fun, and really express myself... treat it as an art, rather than a job.


I've grown more in these past 2 months as a glassblower than I did the entire 2 years before that... and I *really* enjoy my weekend glassblowing, because every weekend I'm more skilled than I was the weekend before

*AHA!*...

Art and Fear... http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...902423-6790428

I highly recommend that book... I felt like it was talking directly to me... the words don't just apply to art, either... they have really helped me with everything in life (mainly the parts that are negatively affected by ADD)

[George guy]

I'm an art student as well, and I find that this helps in maintaining creativity:

1. Write a story that incorporates all your favorite stuff. Whatever you enjoyed from your favorite movies, stick them into something of your own. It will be silly, but it will be custom fitted to your personal definition of fun. If you like Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, and Bridget Jones' Diary, make it about a slightly overweight reporter who is in a love triangle with a mad scientist with a time machine and a daring archaeologist with a fear of snakes. Work on this an hour or two a weekend. Sketch illustrations for it.
2. Whenever you're at a loss for subject material, and you want to paint something, grab those crazy illustration sketches, and do a painting on that.

[idahocrystal]

I was this. I went to school for fine arts. I hated the overly dramatic artists and some of the more judgemental instructors who proclaimed what was "good art" and condemned others.

After college, I found jobs at places where my attention wasn't as important as my production and people were more accepting of diverse personalities. Marketing companies doing data entry, Production line curio painting, receptionist/newsletter/sign maker - Whatever, they paid the bills.

Now, twenty years and a much better perspective later, I can see that I paid a lot of money to study other people's art. I've always had the creativity and talent and it's been on my own that I've developed that. I still am. To this day, I won't hang my own work on my walls. Why? Because I don't need to influence or inspire myself with what inspired me when I created any particular piece.

The best things I tried to help me move out of that 'funk' were:
1) keep a journal - It's the next best thing to talking about where you're at and what you're experiencing.
2) Try just making something useful. Learn a new skill or technique. Make soap or jewelry or a quilt or candy - The list is endless. In this way, you will get a sense of producing something beyond asthetic. Making a physical product, will also provide you with something you can use to earn money and feel productive while providing a creative outlet.
3) Practice going outside of your current emotional comfort zone. Smile at people. Try to fix an "Oh, that's so interesting" look on your face when at parties or gatherings to appear more approachable.

Most of all, know that YOU are your own worst critic. Art is subjective - EVERYONE likes my work more than I like my work so it's more important to me that I ENJOY what I create and not so much that I hang it on my wall.