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What Fuels my Creativity as an Autistic Artist

From our ‘Member Voices’ blog series, Gaelle Chassery writes about the practicalities of creativity.

Living at the intersection of autism, serious long term illness and c-ptsd, creativity is an important way to express myself and participate in the world, though it needs to be managed intelligently to bring benefit rather than pain and overwhelm. My creative work is not flowing from a stable platform of access: it’s happening while 99% housebound, under-supported, practically isolated, navigating inaccessible systems, self-advocating, and fighting misperception even from those close to me. This article aims to give perspective on balancing creativity and practicality within these circumstances.

Disclaimer: The systems allowing my creativity to flow may not mirror your experience and do not constitute advice or guidelines.

Attention as The Root of Creativity

I have always been drawn to details, seasonal changes, textures, colours, patterns and movements. This habit of noticing is the foundation of everything I make. Creativity stays alive by relating to my inner and outer worlds in a present, compassionate way. I spend around 1% of my time in nature, which is a lot less than I would prefer, but when I am there, I am anchored and embodied. That helps me to receive a lot, which I distill into my work with strength and purity.

Because I have built a lifestyle of quiet immersion and connection, I don’t separate life from creativity; my life feeds it continuously. I believe that all actions are creative. The hardest days have sweet and beautiful moments: either I make them happen, or I notice them. My creativity is a direct result of that.

Experimentation and Improvisation

As a self-taught artist, everything I create originates from experimentation and improvisation with no formula or pattern to follow. I have to be resourceful and technically persistent, solving complex problems with patience and humility. I know I have succeeded when my work looks organic, like a little piece of nature. This happens by staying in constant dialogue with the piece. I spend a lot of time with my materials, looking at the way their colours and shine change in the light, noticing their weight, texture and behaviour, how they interact together. This is an essential foundation of my practice.

“Inspiration”

Making doesn’t happen by accident and is no stroke of luck. It happens by repeatedly showing up. I don’t really get what people mean by “inspiration,” and I don’t think about it much. My creative practice is ignited by presence, observation, silent communication with my environment. Nature is a huge influence on my work, but calling it inspiration feels reductive. It’s a place of healing, belonging, a community where I can be, learn, give and receive. It’s so high in my perceptions, daydreams and everyday joys, that I celebrate it through my work without thinking twice, as a pure movement of appreciation, kinship and connection.

Although it is a big part of my life, nature is not the condition for creativity. In my late 20s, I spent 4 years bedbound, unable to leave my room, and many years fully housebound after that. I could not even walk the few steps to my garden or the field and wood nearby. In spite of that, my creativity continued to flourish, because I could maintain connection to my inner world and outer environment through imagination and memory.

At the time I had no internet access and very few distractions, but I wrote, drew and made sensory sculptures from my bed, creating a huge body of work which is a significant basis for what I do now. I’m a great advocate for continuing to create through life’s challenges while caring for our reality. Even though I still have access to very little, I make a dignified choice to fully engage with what is within my reach. This disposition means I receive a lot from simple joys, which are significant components of my healing and creative journey. Seeing a bumblebee hover by my window for a second is a meaningful highlight, recharging the part of my brain that finds joy in life and brings it to art projects.

Solitude as Creative Sanctuary

Solitude is fully integrated in my daily life as the primary way to exist, recharge, consider ideas and turn them into art. I quickly become destabilised if external factors keep intruding. I do enjoy meaningful connections and am involved in projects with countless humans, but I need plenty of space before and after interactions so that I can come back to my responsibilities without tanking.

Relational stress is the greatest threat to my energy and creativity due to delayed processing causing looping thoughts, and the massive impact of problematic dynamics on my nervous system. Learning to implement boundaries has been essential to prevent syphoning energy. It’s important to be realistic about chronic overextension: it took me a long time to learn that kindness and availability should not be a doorway into self-neglect. I preserve my energy and focus by having my phone set to “do not disturb,” notifications are always off, and I no longer use apps that overwhelm my system.

Building a Creative Ecosystem

My capacity is not casual or elastic; it needs ​to be protected with care. Creativity thrives because I design systems around limitations. When illness became a daily reality, I approached it realistically because creativity can only survive if I build structures to support it. Hybrid days and weeks are a big part of my strategy: combining focused tasks with complete rest within the same hour/day/week, is a low pressure way to get things done. I cut tasks into 15-40 minute blocks and have multiple breaks in between to achieve things without crashing.

Some imagine I fill my days skipping through hills and forests, cuddling sheep, playing with gorgeous yarns and having fairies and birds do my housework. Of course, some of those lovely things are part of my life, but as shining fragments. The operating system runs on discipline, sacrifice, labour, skill, and resilience as foundations. What may look like ease and achievement from the outside is the result of decades spent learning how to thrive within significant limitations, deliberately choosing curiosity over despair and nurturing over chaos.

In that context, making art can’t be a dream job: it’s a part time coping mechanism that brings regulation, joy and purpose to balance the full time job of being a nurse and carer to myself. Reframing treatments as the act of creating the person I need in order to be as functional as possible, is a helpful perspective when there is no other choice. It allows me to choose dignity rather than victimhood while navigating complex grief, misperception and frustration as inevitable parts of my circumstances.

Systems and Structures to Hold Creativity

Over the years I’ve learned to build strong structures around my days so that attention and creativity have somewhere stable to live. Order, space and routine are not optional comforts; they are the soil that allows everything to grow. It’s not about control; it’s about making a space where thriving can occur while being realistic about my capacity and not overriding it constantly. Clarity allows me to use my limited energy with precision and intention.

As I manage everything independently, my life only works if it’s carefully structured and purposefully understimulating. Energy levels are unpredictable, pain flares are a recurring feature, and random stressors bring overwhelm. Organisation and adaptive discipline come naturally to me and are the conditions under which I’m able to function at all. If my environment is chaotic, life becomes unmanageable, my physical and mental health suffer and my creative time is impacted.

Everything I create is made from the end of my kitchen counter, a square of 50 x 50cm I jokingly call my Shoebox Studio. As it functions as an office and workshop simultaneously, clutter and disorganisation can’t enter the equation. I keep my materials on shelves and in boxes with clear inventories so I know what I have, and it all gets used or planned for before acquiring more.

Creativity in Practice

Creativity can feel all-consuming, especially when in hyper-focus mode. During those times I still prioritise practical maintenance, self-care and rest, but tend to be more productive. The intensity can take over, so I aim to maintain balance while allowing those productive times, because they are precious. There are always times when making work is slower, so things balance themselves out.

Although I mostly crochet sensory sculptures with Scottish wool, I also get absorbed by embroidery, book making, drawing, painting, photography, writing, music, and much more. Each of these activities is magnetic and I can happily prioritise any for the best part of a year. Sometimes, several blend together into a project and become significant pieces in my portfolio.

Artists are often encouraged to pick one thing and shelve other passions—that would make me joyless and depleted creatively. By rotating several practices, I keep wonder alive and enthusiasm fresh. Because I am fluid in listening to my creative seasons, there are always lots of projects in the near and far future, and I tend to be creative even when things are slower and less outgoing.

Maintaining Connection to Creativity

There are many days when I am too ill to make anything even from bed, unable to make the hundreds of creative decisions that go into a piece. On those days, I keep the connection alive in several ways. Being a visual thinker, I problem-solve in my mind. If I have to leave a piece aside due to flares, I visualise myself working on it, which can help ease the frustration and acts as distraction and painkiller.

I also keep the connection by winding yarn skeins into balls, take photographs of finished works, edit and catalogue photos, write descriptions, sort through digital folders, update my online presence… All this is essential work that I don’t want to be doing while focused on making pieces. Lower input seasons can be used for that: a useful gift to my future self and a way to remain present with my practice.

There are only a few weeks a year when I can do detailed computer work, and I never know when that will occur. Just as seasons unfold, the right time for certain tasks eventually appears. By keeping an eye on my biofeedback, I can be flexible about it. Sometimes I have to meet multiple deadlines and push beyond capacity for weeks, necessitating clear choices, tough sacrifices, and impeccable pacing. I usually will crash afterwards, so these situations remain a last resort.

Creativity as Relationship

My art is not complete until it has entered someone’s life. Creativity is not just about making objects, it’s about creating relationships between materials, people and daily experiences. My favourite moment is when a sculpture leaves my home to become part of other stories. The finished pieces are a bridge offered to visitors within exhibition settings: giving them an anchor, a moment to pause and (re)connect. Being able to offer permission to feel joy and wonder, safety and soothing, is the most exhilarating thing.

Another type of relationship that fuels my creativity is healthy challenges, although they need a delicate balance to work without backfiring. Initiating or joining creative collaborations, attending online workshops, responding to open calls or sending writing for publication is very nourishing. I love sharing my work, meeting like-minded creatives, and providing spaces where people get an opportunity to share their work and the stories behind it. The variety of voices, styles and experiences touches me deeply and nurtures my work on many layers. The shared focus and clear structure of these social interactions help me to operate within my relational window of tolerance, which is energising rather than depleting.

Feedback vs Praise/Criticism and Comparison

To me praise and criticism are like clouds in the sky. I notice them but they don’t inform my choices or self-esteem. Being confident in myself and the value of my work means I share it from a place that doesn’t seek validation, encouragement or reassurance. Comparison does not enter the picture. I see the creative field as a garden or forest where everyone is different and contributes in their unique way. There is no need to waste energy with feelings of inadequacy or jealousy, but if they do appear, I encourage people to explore what is at the bottom of that, perhaps through the channel of art practices and therapy. Art collaborations are also a wonderful way to feel at ease with everyone’s skills and talents.

Personally, I simply want to benefit others, so what really helps is to hear people’s feedback after interacting with what I create: how it makes them feel, what they see in it, what it helped them with, what stories they are creating with the work, etc. These are usually very touching, fun, refreshing and helpful words to receive and directly fuel my creativity when making more pieces.

Respecting Creative Rhythms

I often hear from creatives in autistic burnout that they have lost their skills, and what used to bring them joy no longer does. That’s a normal part of our creative seasons. We don’t expect an oak tree to produce leaves and acorns in the depths of winter because we know it can’t. It doesn’t mean it has lost its inherent oak skills. Nature’s wisdom waits for the right season, when the best conditions are present for the oak to thrive and contribute what it’s supposed to.

Seeing burnout and recovery as an internal winter can reframe a tough time and bring expectations within a realistic level. It’s a permissive way to wait for the right conditions to thrive, creating rest and repair in the meantime.

In Summary

Focusing on embodied presence through life with a realistic, compassionate and organised approach to limitations is what fuels my creativity as an autistic artist. Creativity is not an act of pushing harder or producing more. It is the practice of staying in relationship with my inner and outer worlds within the accommodations I need as an autistic person, the challenges of severe long term illness and the impact of deep trauma. As long as that relationship remains alive and realistic, creativity continues to grow. Although I consider myself to be highly productive and disciplined, the source of my creativity and its purpose are not about either of those things: it’s about attention, presence and connection. Discipline creates the right conditions for things to be made, and productivity is just a side effect of focus and enthusiasm.

Together Apart: Meet the Artist

My name is Lorraine Hamilton, and I’m from Glasgow. I make work primarily with sensory and tactile materials, I like to create sculptures and environments that tell stories of themselves and others. I often feel particularly drawn to working with objects and materials that facilitate the translation and processing of emotion. Whether working in the gallery, theatre, or in nature, neurodivergence and sensory experience are central elements to my practice.

What does the theme Together / Apart mean to you?

Together / Apart made me think of all the versions of ourselves that we carry with us. We are always together and apart from these past selves, they impact who we are today, we can visit them in memory (or in therapy), but we can never go back.

Hearing the theme of the exhibition I immediately thought of a piece of work I made previously called Dead Sea Scroll. This work is a handwritten stream of consciousness text turned into a sculptural form, it hangs from the gallery ceiling creating both an obstacle and a window. The paper is infused with Scottish kelp, and it gives a subtle fragrance of the sea when you pass it closely.I made this piece in response to a group exhibition around the life cycle of the immortal jellyfish. This jellyfish will (seemingly infinitely) return to its polyp (juvenile) form if it encounters harm or trauma, giving itself the chance to grow up again at a later date when its environment is safer. The text itself is a snapshot of visiting my younger self through the process of EMDR therapy, the repetition of the text reflects the repetition involved in this kind of therapeutic work.

What do you like about being part of a collective?

It feels very special to be part of such an open and welcoming group, it’s great to be around other people who have similar experiences and who are making such a huge variety of work. I find Neuk to be particularly supportive, and relaxed. Even though there’s so much on offer – whether it’s practical support for funding application, workshops, or exhibition opportunities like this, it’s great that you can participate and engage in whatever capacity feels right for you.

What else should someone do in Glasgow when they come to see the show? Food, sites to see, other galleries, etc.

There’s so much to see in Glasgow, Project Ability is walking distance from the Barras so I’d recommend popping over there at the weekend to see a mix of old and new Glasgow. There’s good food options too, The Crumbleologist is amazing and completely gluten free, but if you can eat gluten look out for the fresh doughnut stand, and the homemade clootie dumpling.

Also, make sure to spend some time looking at all the other fantastic gallery and art spaces in Trongate 103. Some of Glasgow’s most important independent spaces are housed here and they’re currently under threat. Take the opportunity to see them, see the brilliant work they have, and show your support.

Together Apart: Meet the Artist

I’m ArBee, a Glaswegian artist who uses automatism to create abstract works. I never plan what im going to do and never stick to just one media or substrate. I get more results by mixing things up! It works very well with the impulsiveness that comes with ADHD.

What does the theme Together/Apart mean to you?

To me, Together/Apart reflects the contrast I experience living with ADHD, especially since my discovery in my 30s. Some days I feel “together” — focused, motivated, and satisfied by what I accomplish. Other days, I feel “apart” — overwhelmed and stuck, with a disconnect between what I want to do and what I’m able to do. I connect this idea to my fascination with abandoned buildings: once complete and purposeful, now worn and reclaimed over time. Even in their imperfection and decay, they hold a kind of beauty — just like the balance between feeling together and apart.

What do you like about being part of a collective?

Its really comforting to know that there will be others feeling the same as you. Not only do you share ideas for art but also advice and life hacks for being a neurodivergent. I always feel happy to have discovered this collective and for being allowed to be part of it. Its a community in itself.

What else should someone do in Glasgow when they come to see the show?

Glasgow has some great places for a day out! A firm fave of mines is Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and The Burrell Collection, you need a full day dedicated to these as they are massive! Another great recommendation is the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), Grateful Gallery and Stag Gallery and Framers in Buchannan Galleries. To name a few! 

Together Apart Meet the Artist

I’m Gaelle Chassery, a sensory artist living in Kilmartin Glen on the Scottish West Coast, where I work primarily with Scottish wool which I crochet or needle-felt into interactive sculptures. I also make sensory books with wool and with lots of other materials, like textiles, plastic waste, waste paper, etc. My art aims to reconnect people with themselves, their childlike joy and wonder, and with nature. It’s important to me to bring a sense of pause, safety, grounding and openness with what I do, and usually it’s a healing, fun and transformative experience for people to meet my sculptures and books. A key aspect of my work is that visitors are encouraged to touch and smell it, which is a lovely and permissive thing to be able to offer within exhibition settings.

What does the theme Together / Apart mean to you?
Together/Apart speaks to me on several levels: it’s the layered experience of life itself. I live in solitude almost 100% of the time while being connected online to many people through my engagement as an artist, advocate, writer and space holder: I have the experience of being apart from people while being together with them in ways that I choose mindfully because they are meaningful and respect my capacities.

My sculpture “Symbiosis” is a metaphor for that and an example of what I create in this connected solitude. It also pays tribute to the ecosystems and communities of plants, lichens, rocks and trees that I enjoy on my doorstep, and with whom I feel most at home and welcome. The yarns and wool used for the piece were sourced from a vast quantity of small Scottish producers, who inhabit their own ecosystems and establish their distinctive communities of people, sheep and plants, which results in a huge variety of textures and colours I can then put together into a piece that sings the story of the many Scottish landscapes, sheep, plants, stones and people.

What do you like about being part of Neuk Collective?
Being part of Neuk gives me a space to interact with talented artists, and I am always in awe of the countless skills and talents of our members. It’s supportive to be part of a collective of like-minded people, and to receive the help we need to make our voices heard and our art visible while normalising our experience and supporting each other.

I enjoy the opportunities Neuk gives me to test roles and see what I like to offer, so that I can contribute to this community from home. I have been hosting Body Doubling sessions for some time now, and it’s a lovely way to give back and help others.

Neuk gives me a platform for those skills, my writing, and my art, as well as tailored support in many essential areas for an artist, such as practical know-how, networking, and visibility. It’s a very valuable form of support for someone in my situation: living where I do with a very limiting illness, I have access to nothing except the Internet, and Neuk helps me make the most of it so that I can thrive anyway.

What else should someone do in Glasgow when they come to see the show?

It’s been many years since I was in Glasgow, but at the time I really enjoyed the Botanic Gardens and the Kelvingrove Museum.

Together Apart: Meet The Artist

My name is Isabella Luciani, I am a Welsh-born, Edinburgh-based artist. My creative practice is inspired by the stories, events, and environments that surround us, often drawing on contemporary culture, public life, and the ways images and narratives shape how we understand the world.

What does the theme Together Apart mean to you?

To me, Together / Apart speaks to the shifting ways we experience connection and distance at the same time. It can describe relationships between people, but also broader ways of being in the world and how we are shaped by shared experiences while still interpreting them individually.

I’m interested in that in-between space where things overlap or sit in tension: closeness and separation, presence and absence. These states are rarely fixed, and often exist alongside one another rather than as opposites.

The painting that I’m showing in this exhibition emerged from a dream in which I was hiking with my late grandfather, moving together through a landscape that felt both familiar and imagined. It explores the space between presence and absence, where connection can continue through memory and the subconscious, even when someone is no longer physically present. Embracing distortion, slippage, and fragmented memory. It reflects on ‘remembering forward’ imagining futures shaped by those no longer here and sits within the space between togetherness and distance, memory and anticipation.

What do you like about being part of Neuk collective?

Being part of a collective offers the chance to genuinely share ideas in a way that feels open and ongoing, rather than working in isolation. I really value being able to connect with like-minded people who are all approaching their practice in different ways, and seeing how those conversations naturally influence and shape my own thinking.

It also brings a lot of opportunity not just in terms of visibility, but in learning from others, exchanging skills, and being part of something that feels active and evolving. There’s a real benefit in working alongside people who are equally invested, where ideas can develop through discussion and shared experience rather than staying fixed.

That kind of environment often pushes my work further than it would go on its own, and creates space for experimentation and growth in a really organic way.

What else should someone do in Glasgow when they come to see the show?

Glasgow has such a strong cultural energy, so I’d definitely encourage people to explore beyond the exhibition. The city has a brilliant range of galleries I’d recommend simply spending time walking around and just popping in to gallery spaces

Leo Hajducki – Artist Statement

Due to space constraints, we were unable to include Leo’s full artist statement in the Together | Apart ‘About the Artists’ book. So we are posting it in its entirely here.

Leo Hajducki

‘Tail of Two Cities’ (2025)

Collage

About the Art

Tail of Two Cities examines how cities—and the people who move through them—exist in a constant state of tension between connection and separation. Using an outdated estate map of Edinburgh and a contemporary Glasgow Art Map, the collage brings two civic identities into contact without collapsing their differences. One map is tied to property, ownership and historical authority; the other to cultural mobility, grassroots networks and public access. They sit together yet speak from opposing worldviews. Throughout the collage, political fragments appear: a hand clutching the Financial Times, a red tile proclaiming VIVE LA COMMUNE, youth-culture quotations about class performance, and a line from Barthes on rejecting the moral policing of “good society.” These pieces clash, overlap, and refuse to settle into a single narrative. Instead, they highlight how power, class, and authorship shape our sense of place—and how easily those structures can be unsettled when images and voices are recontextualised. The two cats, one ceramic and one real, anchor the work in a philosophical play between presence and imitation, authenticity and artifice. Their borrowed voices—one from Britpop, one from Barthes—reflect how identity within a city is both performed and contested. They act as witnesses positioned at opposite poles, holding the composition in a state of tension. Ultimately, the work thinks about cities as spaces we co-inhabit but experience unevenly: places where histories run parallel, where revolution and respectability coexist, and where the local is always political. The collage offers no resolution. Instead, it holds Edinburgh and Glasgow—as well as their cultural, economic and ideological contradictions—together, apart.

About the Artist

Leo Hajducki (she/they) is an artist whose practice is rooted in drawing—often done quietly, privately, and with an intensity that allows days to pass unnoticed in the studio. Their early work explored astronomical forms before moving through anatomy, eventually finding a grounding in portraiture, where attention, tenderness, and presence converge. Alongside drawing, Leo works opportunistically across installation, film, collage, painting, photography—anything that invites learning and play becomes part of the work. Leo has just finished an MLitt in Curatorial Practice in Contemporary Art at the Glasgow School of Art, building on an undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Politics from the University of Edinburgh. Their artistic interests revolve around intimacy, perception, materiality, and the quiet states that making can open up.

– Leo Hajduckie, 2026

Katie McGroarty – Artist Statement

Due to space constraints, we were unable to include Katie’s full artist statement in the Together | Apart ‘About the Artists’ book. So we are posting it in its entirely here.

Katie McGroaty

‘Soft Pig’

(2025)

Oil on board

In this body of work, a statue of two anthropomorphic pigs is used as a conduit for internalised hatred, hatred is projected onto them as well as spun out from them. Specifically, the work is a meditation on internalised misogyny as part of a larger theme in my work where I explore internalised misogyny’s roles in intersection with sectarianism in Scotland. Misogyny in its functionality requires comparison and therefore an “other”; within this praxis, the former and the “other” are intertwined as one through this relationship, while simultaneously severed apart by it. Ultimately, this mechanism is a cog in the bigger machine of patriarchy, a system which cages both the acter and the “other”; both are recaptured in this mechanism by those who do the bidding of the patriarchy in their policing, who are also harmed in this process and the continuation of their own cannibalistic actions.

I chose to use oil painting as it would highlight the status of the pig, heightened due to her policing of other pigs. She holds a platter with a severed pigs trotter on it, we can’t see her other trotter, it may well be her own, it could be someone else’s – she understands the patriarchy demands to be fed in this way, we don’t know to what extent she will go to to feed it. I chose to continue to use the pig statue for this piece due to pigs association with the police, highlighted in their role as class traitors in Animal Farm, in addition to their association with covering up crimes (such as eating every body part other than teeth.) I chose to keep the piggy pink colours to soften the piece, using the idea that the use of pink lessens the severity of the situation, as well as introduce the force of a lens of passive aggression to the audience. I am forcing them to confront Pig as the actioner, in turn risking their own position in through actions they complete due to instruction from a third party. While Pig and innocent pigs are intertwined in the same system – both sewn together and severed apart by it simultaneously – I, in discussing the work in this way, have sewn the audience and Pig together through a similar mechanism, and severed them apart by the same means.

– Katie McGroarty, 2026

The Umbrella Practice: Why Creativity Doesn’t Need One Box

Neuk Member Dominika Jackowska on how finding your niche can be overrated.

Back when I was at university, someone said that to succeed, you should find your style, your niche, and just go for it. The idea was that if you have a recognisable style or look, people will know you for it

I tried to do that, but I have to be honest, I struggled with it. Maybe it’s because I’ve always been interested in so many different things, and it was difficult for me to stick to just one. I find many different things fascinating.

I started with animation, first traditional and then digital. At some point early on, I came across the work of MUTO, the Big Bang Big Boom animation by street artist Blu. He created animation on a huge scale using murals. It was incredibly impressive and it always stayed with me.

Later I discovered VJ Suave, a group from Brazil that creates “guerrilla animation” projections from a cargo bike. I loved the idea of making animation on a large scale and bringing it into public spaces. It felt very different from what I had been doing before.

These artists and creatives I came across really shaped my idea of what is possible.

The more you discover and the more you learn, the more your understanding of what is possible expands. I’ve always liked a challenge and trying new things. Somewhere along the way I realised I wanted to make work that brings animation into physical spaces, work that I’m excited about.

I started with animation, but over the years my practice has expanded into physical work, interactive projects, projection mapping, theatre, metalwork, and interactive installations. Animation is still at the centre of it all, but it has found ways to exist beyond the screen.

I sometimes think about creativity less as a straight path and more as a network of routes. The core ideas remain the same, but the medium changes depending on what the idea needs. Sometimes a story works best as a film. Sometimes it needs light, movement, physical space, or interaction with people.

Curiosity kept leading me into new territories.

And now I don’t mind that I don’t have one specific style. Instead, I think of my creative practice as an umbrella for exploration.

I’ve made peace with the fact that this is how my brain works. I no longer fight it, I embrace it. And this way of thinking has led me to many interesting projects and collaborations.

If you are interested in something new, go for it. You might not know yet how it will fit into your practice. Maybe not in the next month, or even the next year. But the things you learn won’t disappear. At some point they might become useful in a future project or idea.

One thing I’ve learned over the years is how important play is in creative practice.

Being a freelancer means there are many things aside from the fun, creative making that you have to deal with, such as applications, emails, planning, etc. All of those things are necessary, but they can take up a lot of your time and mental space.

That’s why it’s important to carve out time for your own making, sometimes with no purpose at all. It doesn’t have to be a huge block of time. Even 15 or 30 minutes once in a while can make a difference.

I run a lot of creative workshops, and something I’ve realised is how nice it is to attend a workshop run by someone else. Recently, I went to a sashiko stitching workshop. It was a wonderful experience to learn something new while simply being a participant rather than the person organising everything.

That’s why workshops and experimental spaces are so valuable. They allow you to make something without pressure or expectation. No brief, no deliverables, no outcome that needs to justify itself.

Just curiosity.

Those moments often reconnect me to the original joy of making.

Something I’ve noticed is that ideas rarely appear fully formed. Often they start as small experiments.

You try something out of curiosity, maybe on a very small scale, without knowing exactly what it will become.

Then months or even years later, the idea comes back. Suddenly there is an opportunity, a project, or a collaboration where that experiment finds its place and grows into something much bigger.

Nothing you learn or try is wasted. Even the smallest experiment can become part of something larger in the future.

Being a freelance creative also means living with a constant flow of tasks that exist outside the creative process.

There are applications to write, emails to send, people to contact, funding forms to complete, and budgets to plan. Projects vary between short-term and long-term commitments.

One of the hardest parts can be the feeling of never finishing your to-do list. It’s very easy to underestimate how long things take, and suddenly the day disappears into admin tasks.

Rejection is also part of the process. Applications get declined and ideas don’t always find support. Over time you develop a thicker skin and learn to keep going.

There are also moments where you’re not entirely sure what the next step is. You might not know exactly where things are heading, but you know the direction will still be creative.

Sometimes that uncertainty is part of the journey.

We are also surrounded by constant messages about productivity.

Online platforms often push the idea that we should always be improving, producing more, monetising our work, and optimising every aspect of our lives. On some level that advice can be useful, but seeing it every day can start to distort reality.

Creativity doesn’t always work on that kind of schedule.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is unplug for a while. Step away from the algorithm. Make something without documenting it or sharing it immediately.

Over the years I’ve also learned the importance of being forgiving towards yourself.

Creative life is not constant productivity. There are periods of intense making and periods that feel quieter. Times where ideas flow easily and times where everything feels slower.

We are not machines.

I’ve started thinking about creativity more like nature. A plant grows upwards, but it also grows downwards, building roots beneath the surface.

Those roots are not always visible, but they are important. In creative work, they might be learning, experimenting, observing, or simply giving ideas time to develop.

Creativity also moves through seasons. There are times of growth, when ideas flourish, and quieter periods that feel more like hibernation. Those slower moments can feel unproductive, but they are part of the process.

Just like in nature, not everything is meant to be in bloom all the time.

Often when we look at other artists or creators, we see the flower.

The finished film.
The installation.
The exhibition.
The performance.

What we don’t see are the roots beneath it, the years of learning, failed attempts, workshops, experiments, and quiet moments of doubt.

Creative work grows in both directions: upwards and downwards.

Both are necessary.

Someone once asked a simple question: Why do we make films?

There are many answers.

To tell stories.
To imagine new worlds.
To communicate something personal.
To escape reality for a moment.

All of those reasons are valid.

For me, a lot of my work is about creating moments of pause. Our brains wander constantly throughout the day, thinking about the past or the future. Through installations, light, visuals, and sensory experiences, I often try to bring people back into the present moment.

Even if only briefly.

Earlier in my career, I sometimes thought creative work had to make a huge impact to matter.

Now I’m not so sure.

If someone experiences something new through a piece of work, if a workshop sparks a new idea for someone, or if even one person walks away seeing the world a little differently, that already feels meaningful.

Impact doesn’t always have to be massive to matter.

Art and music also have a powerful way of bringing people together.

They create shared spaces, a bit like modern town squares. Places where people gather, experience something collectively, and connect through emotion or curiosity.

Film festivals are a great example of this. Watching short films from different parts of the world can widen your perspective without travelling anywhere. You see glimpses of other cultures, ideas, and ways of storytelling.

Those experiences remind you how many different voices exist.

Looking back, working across different disciplines was never really a strategy. It simply came from following my curiosity and allowing ideas to move between different forms.

Animation still sits at the centre of my practice, but it continues to evolve through new materials, technologies, and collaborations.

There will probably always be new skills to learn, new ideas to explore, and new routes that lead back to the same creative core.

And maybe that’s the point.

Creativity doesn’t need to fit into one box. Sometimes it grows best when we allow it to move freely between many.

On the importance of creativity in troubled times

When the world feels increasingly irrational and fragmented and we are facing so many crises, why is art more important than ever? 

Neuk member Eleanor Buffam reflects on why creativity is not a luxury in times of crisis, but a vital force for connection, resistance and renewal.

Art and creative play can sometimes feel frivolous, especially as we’ve internalised capitalistic ideas about inherent value. Or it can seem superfluous. Surely we should be doing something more important in the face of the many crises we are facing? Sometimes it seems as though the act of creating, of making visual art, music, dance or poetry is not doing anything to help change the world.

Of course, direct actions and political struggles remain important. Protest, mobilise, do all the things! But alongside that mobilisation, and indeed within that mobilisation we need to nurture ourselves, we need to connect to each other, and we need to look for innovative solutions, and that’s where creativity is absolutely indispensable. With collaboration, reinvention, daydreaming, playing, singing, dancing, painting, and writing (indeed with any and all sorts of artistic actions) we can nourish ourselves while reinventing our present and our future, pivoting away from the neoliberal capitalist system that is destroying the planet and destroying our health.

Art is integral to humanity, it is part of us, and has been since prehistoric times, from the time of the earliest cave paintings and carved figurines. It is essential to our development. Children begin mark making at an early age, usually by the age of two. Marilyn Goodman writes that “Art is an integral activity to a child’s development. It allows children to discover, explore, experiment and learn independently… drawing with a variety of mediums encourages children to figure out how they feel about themselves and things around them.”^[1] Art is how we make sense of the world, and importantly it’s enjoyable.

Yes, that’s right. Art is fun! Pleasure is important, and not something to feel guilty about. The fact that this seems revolutionary in our culture is wild to me. Let’s stop venerating suffering. Why are we on this earth if not to enjoy ourselves? I’m not talking about mindless hedonism here, which importantly is not actually pleasurable, as it leaves one with a sense of emptiness. Creativity does the opposite.

The importance of art and creativity is so huge, I feel that I could write a book on it. Maybe I will someday. For now, I will limit myself to illustrating my point with a few specific examples.

Art reminds us what we are fighting for, what a better world can look like. Iain M. Banks’s Culture series of science fiction novels describe a post-scarcity anarchist-communist society in which everyone is free to live the life that they wish to. Ursula K. Le Guin, in The Dispossessed, depicts another vision of an anarchist society, one that isn’t post-scarcity and for that reason is perhaps more relevant to where we are today. These books build worlds that feel believable, templates that we can imagine ourselves living in and can therefore work towards creating.

There are many examples of such utopias in writing and films, and of course the converse is also true, that there are many examples of dystopias. Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil, for example, depicts a nightmare of bureaucracy and state control. George Orwell’s 1984 is a book that describes a society so evocative and chilling that it has literally given us the adjective ‘orwellian’. These dystopias are critiques of the contemporary society and are also warnings as to what can happen if we remain on our present course, but importantly they are also beautiful and entertaining in the way that they evoke the imagery of their dystopian realities. We go on an adventure with the characters, we can imagine ourselves in their shoes, and we can start to recognise the parallels in the societies that we currently live in. Take warning!

Art can inform and give voice to difficult issues. Yinka Shonibare, who tackles issues of racism and slavery in beautifully patterned sculptures says, “I believe that art is not about giving instructions; it’s more of a poetic exploration… it provides a poetic lens through which we can explore and understand complex issues.”^[2] Because his sculptures are so visually stunning, brightly patterned and beautiful, they invite us in, engaging us and enthralling us while giving us (and himself) a chance to consider and process the heavy and complicated issues he is referring to.

Two days after 900 people were arrested in London protesting against the banning of the group Palestine Action, Banksy installed a mural on the wall of the Royal Courts of Justice building in London depicting a wigged judge attacking a protester with a hammer. This mural clearly struck a nerve as it was immediately covered up and guarded, and later scrubbed off.^[3] Ironically the scrubbed version, artistically speaking, is even more evocative than the original, as it rather proves Banksy’s point. Its shadowy form is a monument to censorship. The fact that the powers that be felt so threatened by a mural shows the importance of art in confronting oppression and speaking truth to power.

Toni Morrison talks about the threat to power that art has at great length in her 2015 essay ‘No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear: In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent‘. She writes about feeling paralysed with depression and unable to write after George W. Bush wins the election. Then a friend points out to her that “This is precisely the time when artists go to work — not when everything is fine, but in times of dread. That’s our job!” She remembers that: “Dictators and tyrants routinely begin their reigns and sustain their power with the deliberate and calculated destruction of art: the censorship and book-burning of unpoliced prose, the harassment and detention of painters, journalists, poets, playwrights, novelists, essayists.”^[4] Do you think that censorship of art would occur if art had no power to change the narrative, to change the world?

Recently, in the city of Portland in the United States, an unlikely hero has emerged on the streets: an enormous puffy frog. As the government attempted to frame protesters as dangerous and violent, Portland fought back in a very creative way. Protestors donned costumes of every kind, danced, sang, and staged tea parties in the streets. There were unicyclers and jugglers and flash mob dancers. When a protestor named Seth Todd, wearing a puffy frog costume, was pepper sprayed, the video went viral. Soon the frogs had become the symbol of the resistance.

An article in the Associated Press notes that: “For protesters like Todd, the costumes are a way of fighting absurdity with absurdity: a playful counter to Trump’s portrayal of Portland as ‘war ravaged,’ ‘burning down’ and ‘like living in hell.’”^[5]

So far, these examples have examined art that is specifically and consciously political. But what about art that is not consciously political? Is it also important? I say yes, indeed I would argue that all art and creativity is inherently political, whether it seems so at first glance or not.

One powerful thing that art can do is to show us what the world looks like through different eyes, what it’s like to be someone else, how another soul lives and feels, which plays an enormous part in nurturing empathy and respect. Art can speak across different languages and cultures to connect and nurture us. A film or a painting can also teach us to look at the everyday in a new way, in the way that the artist sees it, and of course the making of art helps us to share this insight into the heart of ourselves with others. This kind of communication and empathy is a direct threat to those who would seek to divide us, for example those who demonise migrants, refugees, disabled people, neurodivergent people, queer people, and so forth.

Visual art, film, writing (if translated, obviously), and music can speak across languages, and can put us in touch with others in very different situations than our own.

Several nights ago I watched the film Un Dessert Pour Constance.^[6] This is a film set in Paris which follows a pair of African immigrants who are best friends. In their job as street-sweepers they find a cookbook which changes their lives and enables them to win a large sum of money in a competition. With the money they are able to send their sick friend home and then open an African restaurant. This film brings the viewer into their lives. I experienced an intimate portrait of their friendship, of their joy and despair, of their progression from street-sweepers to restauranteurs, and the diverse society which forms around them. The protagonists are not people that I am ever likely to meet. They live in another country, they speak in a language in which I am not fluent, they live in a world which is very different to mine. And yet I now feel that I know them, at least a little. What matters to them has mattered to me. The film has expanded my empathy and my compassion for people who are different to myself.

Films that are made by people from a similar background can also spark revelations, as they show us the very specific viewpoint of the director. For example, after watching David Lynch’s film Mulholland Drive, I found myself looking at reality in a new way, hearing incidental sounds in the environment as charged with meaning. Reality itself seemed to have changed somehow, but the change had merely been in my perception. Reality had always been this strange, this beautiful, this tinged with magic and adventure. This point of view is incredibly inspiring. It opens my eyes to the magic that is all around me in my own life, and encourages me to express my own personal viewpoint, to share and connect with others.

This is perhaps one of the most important things that art can do: art creates new artists. And we need all the artists we can get. We need to hear from everybody’s specific and personal viewpoint, we need all the diversity and creativity in the world if we are to survive as a species.

After looking at impressionist paintings such as Claude Monet’s Poplars on the Epte, I find myself appreciating the way that sunlight moves through trees. This painting of some trees in France has caused me to appreciate the trees that I see every day in Edinburgh in a new way. I admire the brushstrokes, the use of light and shadow. It’s a beautiful painting, and beautiful paintings make me want to paint.

It seems possibly ironic that many of Monet’s tranquil and colourful paintings were created as a personal response to the senseless violence and death of the First World War. Monet could hear the gunshots from his studio. Fighting was taking place just 50 kilometres away, and he had family members in the army.

Painting, for Monet, was his life. It was the way he expressed himself, the way he understood the world around him, and the way he processed his emotions. He wrote, “It’s the best way to avoid thinking of these sad times. All the same, I feel ashamed to think about my little researches into form and colour while so many people are suffering and dying for us.”^[7]

Should he have felt ashamed? I think not. I think it is wonderful that he responded to ugly, savage brutality with its opposite: with the beauty of the natural world. If only more people saw the world this way, the futility of war would be obvious.

Monet was also processing his emotions by painting. The power of creativity to process trauma has been well documented and has spawned the practices of art therapy, music therapy, dance therapy, and so forth. The process of creating art is known to reduce stress, to improve mental health, and to help transmute difficult emotions. Visual art can do this when words fail.

The benefits of becoming more mentally healthy are not confined to the individual, of course. Anyone who heals emotionally will have a ripple effect through the society that they live in. Healthy people are less likely to traumatise others, for one thing.

All art conveys difficult emotions, but music especially excels in this. Anyone who has ever lost themselves dancing to their favourite song while singing along at the top of their lungs can testify to this power of music: it’s cathartic. 

Not many people can listen to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and fail to be moved. The Ninth is famously a celebration of the interconnectedness of humankind, using the lyrics of Friedrich Schiller’s poem “Ode to Joy” in its final movement. Beethoven also overcame his own physical impairment to write the music, as he was profoundly deaf at the time. Its power is perhaps best encapsulated in a famous quote by Mikhail Bakhunin, the Russian revolutionary anarchist: “Everything will pass and the world will perish but Beethoven’s Ninth [Symphony] will remain.”^[8]

Incidentally, this quote is reminiscent of a Scottish Gaelic proverb which states “Thig crìoch air an t’saoghal ach mairidh gaol is ceòl” (The world will pass away, but love and music will endure).

As I type this, I am listening to a particularly moving performance of Beethoven’s Ninth by the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Barenboim. This orchestra is made up of young musicians from Israel, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Spain, as a conscious effort to bring young people together who would otherwise learn to hate and fear each other.

The proceeds from this benefit concert were donated to music education programs in Palestine.^[9]

When struggling to process difficult emotions, I have always found release and comfort through punk music that expresses sheer visceral anger and joy. Operation Ivy expresses this well in their lyrics to ‘Sound System’:

Sound system gonna bring be back up, yeah

One thing that I can depend on

Static pulse inside of music bringing us escape

It’s always temporary, changing nothing in its wake

Just a second while were leaving all this shit behind

Just a second, but it’s leaving just this much in mind

To resist despair that second makes you see

To resist despair ’cause you can’t change everything

To resist despair in this world is

What it is, what it is, what it is to be free!

I’d like to take a moment to look at creativity through a specifically ADHD lens. I have ADHD, perhaps you do as well, or perhaps you know someone who does? Or perhaps you don’t and you feel that this is an irrelevant diversion, in which case please feel free to skip ahead to the penultimate paragraph. I’ll see you there.

Now, where was I? Those of us with ADHD can often get distracted, can wander down side paths when we meant to be sticking to the main one, can go to the shops for milk and come back with a solar powered blinking owl and a lifetime supply of aluminium foil. ADHD is sometimes referred to as a “superpower”, which honestly I find annoying. Losing keys, forgetting important events, double-booking, getting constantly distracted… a superpower? Please.

And yet, when it comes to creativity, ADHD really might be a superpower. We excel in pattern-spotting, innovation, and as we tend to jump in and out of obsessions we can draw on many different fields and influences. Leonardo da Vinci, that quintessential Renaissance man, is believed to have had ADHD.^[10] One minute he’s inventing a helicopter, the next he’s dissecting a cadaver, then he pulls out his paintbrushes to work on his masterpiece, the Mona Lisa, endlessly refining the painting.

Our brains move at lighting fast speeds. We’ll spot connections and patterns while everyone else is still putting their reading glasses on. Our minds wander, darting like butterflies from idea to idea. Often this is seen as a negative feature — we can’t concentrate, we can’t stick to a task! But it is precisely this mind wandering that leads to greater creativity, as has recently been confirmed by a study at the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology. K.P. Lesch (Professor of Molecular Psychiatry, University of Würzburg, Germany) said regarding the study, “Mind wandering is one of the critical resources on which the remarkable creativity of high-functioning [sic] ADHD individuals is based. This makes them such an incredibly valuable asset for our society and the future of our planet.”^[11]

Yay! We’re going to save the world! No pressure, my fellow ADHD creatives. That quote is a little condescending, but on the other hand it is refreshing to have our talents valued in a time in which the mainstream media seeks to demonise us, constantly talking about ‘overdiagnosis’ when the truth is that ADHD is massively underdiagnosed in the UK, and many people wait years for an assessment. (I waited 4.5 years, and I am still waiting for medication.)

We need creativity and innovation more than ever in today’s world, as we are facing multiple civilisation-threatening crises. Please, all of you, whether you have ADHD or not — express your creativity. Release your inner child. Sing out loud, move to the rhythm that you hear, play in the grass like a toddler, frolic through fields of wildflowers, create a beautiful garden, paint a portrait of your cat, play the guitar, dye your hair, design a tattoo, colour your walls bright purple, make a stop-motion animation about three enchanted magpies, recite poetry, perform a one-person opera to a squirrel, write a novel, bake a delicious cake, design a complicated hat that turns into a pillow, build sculptures out of discarded pickle jars, perform an interpretive dance — express your soul in whatever way you want to. We need you and your specific creativity and we need the art that emerges from it, to nourish us, to heal us, and to inspire us.

The expression of creativity isn’t frivolous, it’s quite the opposite. Creativity not only helps us understand and process reality, it also shapes reality. Let’s change the world for the better together, creatively.

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^[1] Goodman, Marilyn JS. Children Draw. Reaktion Books Ltd, 2018. p. 8

^[2] “Restitution and Reflection: Yinka Shonibare Challenges Colonial Legacies”, Whitewall. https://bit.ly/3M4K5kU

^[3]“New Banksy mural appears at Royal Courts of Justice”, BBC, 8 September 2025, https://bit.ly/4oHyaXv and “Banksy Mural Scrubbed from Royal Courts of Justice”, BBC, 10 September 2025, https://bit.ly/4pmjZIz

^[4] Toni Morrison, “No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear”, The Nation, 6 April 2015, https://bit.ly/4q7Wbbo Please, read the whole essay, it’s amazing.

^[5] “How inflatable costumes ballooned at anti-Trump rallies due to a protester’s frog outfit”, The Associated Press, November 2025, https://bit.ly/4oHMC1L

^[6] “Un Dessert Pour Constance”, Directed by Sarah Maldoror, France, 1981.

^[7] As quoted in “Wartime water lilies: how Monet created his garden at Giverny” by Ann Dumas on the Royal Academy website: <https://bit.ly/4rIjZUT>

^[8] As quoted on Classical Music dot com, by BBC Music Magazine. <https://bit.ly/48EICub>

^[9] On YouTube here: https://bit.ly/48FmPT5

^[10] Daley, Jason. “New Study Suggests Leonardo da Vinci had ADHD”. Smithsonian Magazine, 5 June 2019. <https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-study-suggests-da-vinci-had-adhd-180972359/>

^[11] European College of Neuropsychopharmacology. “New research reveals how ADHD sparks extraordinary creativity.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 13 October 2025. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/10/251012054608.htm>.

On Writing and Neurodivergency

Neuk member Elspeth Wilson interviewed other neurodivergent writers reflecting on how it influences their craft.

When neurodivergent writers are interviewed or spoken about, there’s often an emphasis on their process. How and when do they write, do they have a routine, how does their neurodiversity impact that. And whilst this is all valid, interesting and potentially useful for other writers, there’s a lack of discussion about how neurodiversity impacts writing craft. As neurodivergent authors, we have so much to offer in terms of form and craft as well as representation and process – although perhaps neurodivergent style can be thought of as a kind of representation in and of itself.

“In writing horror, my neurodivergence is a massive gift,” explains Lucy Rose, best-selling author of The Lamb, a folk horror cannibal novel that explores mother-daughter relationships. “My relationship with textures makes me want to crawl out my skin.” As neurodivergent people, we often notice – and are potentially horrified by – small details such as flickering lights, the wrong shape of spoon or a clothing label rubbing against our back. Rose uses these everyday experiences to create a kind of creeping dread; it’s not so much transforming the mundane into the terrifying, but foregrounding the terror that already exists within it.

“The trick to writing good horror is that you don’t show the monster but you let us feel it”, Rose says – a sentiment that will be familiar to many neurodivergent people who are haunted by sensory issues that others may not even notice. And it’s not just horror where noticing small details enriches writing. Tom Newlands points out that “being autistic makes you very interested in the world, and in people, and very driven to learn.” In his literary coming-of-age novel, Only Here, Only Now, Newlands builds a rich sensory world in a coastal town in 90s Fife. “All that information that you take in over the years, paying attention to things, it accrues, and what you end up with is a picture of the world that is more advanced; richer and more multi-faceted – more overwhelming at times, too.”

As Rose notes, “there’s a huge misconception that people who are neurodivergent don’t feel empathy as much.” But for many neurodivergent people this couldn’t be further from the case. “I’m very curious about other people’s feelings,” Rose says. “I’m constantly trying to understand the people around me which is a really taxing pursuit.” And although it might be draining, it can allow a writer to get into the minds and feelings of their characters, including those who have different characteristics to the author.

Whilst this is a necessity for all writers, anyone who has been brought up in a mainstream culture that doesn’t cater to their needs arguably has a headstart on relating to and empathising with a whole range of characters. Because the fictional characters we grew up with were almost never (openly) neurodivergent, we’ve gotten used to both decoding neurotypical characters and empathising with those who are different from ourselves.

That said, neurodivergent characters may not always be legible or likeable to neurotypical audiences and that in itself offers something to a literary landscape where there’s a focus on likeability, particularly for female characters. In my debut novel, These Mortal Bodies, the main character, Ivy, makes dubious decisions driven by her fervent desire to belong when thrust into a glittering yet treacherous world at a prestigious university. For some readers, this might make Ivy unpalatable – and of course it’s every reader’s prerogative to have their own opinion on a book. But I believe my neurodiversity helps me write characters who are nuanced and complex, observant and watchful because I grew up studying and imitating others out of necessity. A character doesn’t have to be relatable or like the reader to be a good character or to offer them something. The ‘outsider’ main character has long been a method of giving a reader a way into a story – and neurodivergent writers are ideally placed to understand and interpret this feeling.

For Natalie Jayne Clark, author of the sapphic crime novel The Malt Whisky Murders, her own way of experiencing and thinking about the world directly influences the voice of her novel, told in first-person by the main character, Eilidh. Like Clark, Eilidh has ADHD, and the author describes it as “natural” for her protagonist to “take us through their thoughts and rationale in a similar way. There might be an image, detail or tangent that doesn’t initially make sense or feels unusual, but then we can see how her (or my) brain has connected the two.” Again, neurodivergent writers are writing against the grain of characters being instantly understandable to readers – and offering creative richness in the process.

Many writers write to make sense of their experiences and this can have an extra dimension for neurodivergent writers who are navigating a world that wasn’t made for them. Marcia Hutchinson, author of The Mercy Step which explores the life of a young girl in 1960s Bradford, describes her writing as autofiction; “I write about my own life, not just because I’ve had a relatively long and eventful life, but because I want to try and understand why I have behaved the way I have in so many circumstances.” This way of excavating one’s own emotions and behaviour will be familiar to many neurodivergent people; it allows Hutchinson to act almost like a detective of herself and transform her own experiences into fiction. She explains that “often with the benefit of hindsight I can see that I took people literally when they were speaking figuratively but I was unable to distinguish between the two.”

Neurodivergent writers also often approach language itself in particular ways. The main character of Newlands’ novel, Cora, is a teenage girl whose voice is immersive and lively throughout the book. “One of the reasons I chose to write in the voice of a teenager was because it would allow me to be playful,” he says. “There was scope for slang, brand names, compound words, weird spellings.” This was partly to entertain the reader “but most importantly keep my brain interested.”

Hutchinson, who has ADHD, also notes that she has to work on exactly what she’s drawn to at the time: “I would be terrified to get a two book deal because the pressure of having to write book two would do me in.” The tendency for many neurodivergent brains to get bored quickly can produce writing that is extraordinarily varied and imaginative at a sentence level as well as in relation to story and character.

Neurodivergent people are increasingly visible – often as political scapegoats – and whilst there’s been greater representation in recent years thanks to fantastic novels such as A Kind of Spark by Elle McNicoll, our visibility can come at a high price. In the arts world, neurodivergent writers are still often pigeonholed or tokenised. But there’s a burgeoning, hugely varied neurodivergent canon out there which should be taken seriously on its own merits. We may still be the outsiders looking into a neurotypical (literary) world but that allows us to rebel, experiment, play and see things in interesting, insightful ways – even through the barriers that are placed in our way.

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Spectra Leadership Development Programme

Our Spectra Leadership Development Programme is now live for applications!

Find out more about it on our dedicated Spectra site 👈

Proposed Access to Work Changes: What You Need to Know

You might have seen recent headlines about proposed changes to Access to Work (AtW). These changes, outlined in the UK Government’s Pathways to Work Green Paper, are deeply concerning – especially for disabled creatives and freelancers.

We know many of our members rely on Access to Work to make their practice sustainable – whether that’s through support workers, assistive tech, travel help, or mental health support. It’s not a luxury. It’s what makes working possible for many of us.

The proposed reforms risk:

• Making it harder to qualify for support
• Reassessing existing claims more frequently
• Increasing bureaucracy
• And potentially reducing or capping awards

This would disproportionately affect disabled people working in the cultural sector – a sector already facing inequality, burnout, and precarity.

What can you do?

We recommend reading Disability Arts Online’s clear and thoughtful explainer about what’s happening and what it could mean:

Disability Arts Online – Access to Work: Changes and Actions 2025

They also include ways you can get involved – including signing an open letter and sharing your experience.

If you currently receive Access to Work, or hope to apply, we know this news may feel overwhelming. We’ll be keeping a close eye on developments and doing what we can to raise awareness of how these changes could affect our community.

Thank you!

Earlier this year we held a crowdfunder, which raised £1500. We want to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who donated – you’ve made our new phase possible ❤

We want to say an individual thank you to Catriona, Aurora, Peter, Bill, Gaelle, Rachel, Anita, Iona, Ailsa, Megan, Megan, Anna, Jessie, Janine, Dani, Claudia, Alasdair, Phoebe, Alice, Dani, Caleb, Molly, James, Fiona, Jané, Dougal, Amy, Claire, Hyeji, and Michael – and of course to all our anonymous donors.

We will be announcing our new plans tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Statement from Neuk Collective on the Closure of the Open Fund for Individuals

We are shocked and deeply saddened by Creative Scotland’s decision to close the Open Fund for Individuals indefinitely, starting on 30th August. This fund has been a vital support for many of us, helping us to pursue our creative work in ways that respect our unique needs and perspectives.

This decision is a serious setback for the most vulnerable and marginalised artists in our community. Neurodivergent and disabled artists, who already face many barriers to accessing and participating in the arts, will be hit especially hard. The Open Fund has given us the freedom and flexibility to develop our work outside of traditional institutions, which is often crucial for our creative processes.

Losing this funding not only threatens our ability to continue our individual work, but it also weakens the diversity and inclusivity of Scotland’s cultural scene. Without this support, many neurodivergent and disabled artists will struggle to find the resources they need, leading to a less vibrant and less representative arts sector.

We are particularly worried that this decision will widen the existing inequalities in the arts community. Only those with financial privilege will be able to afford to keep developing their art, further marginalising those from low-income backgrounds, including many neurodivergent and disabled individuals.

We urge Creative Scotland and the Scottish Government to reconsider this decision and to understand the unique challenges neurodivergent and disabled artists face. Any funding solutions must prioritise accessibility, fairness, and the well-being of all artists, especially those from underrepresented and marginalised groups.

We stand in solidarity with all artists affected by this decision and will continue to fight for a more inclusive and supportive arts sector. Our voices, stories, and creativity matter.

Pittenweem Arts Festival – About the Artists

Find out more about the Neuk Collective artists exhibiting at Pittenweem Arts Festival!

Tom Bird

Tom Bird (they/them) is a Dundee-based writer and poet, and performer in poetry-music duo, 2 Stoned Birds. Their spoken word poetry often delves into fantasy, neurodivergence and trans identity, with warm honesty and hope. In 2022, they were the recipient of the Creative Non-Fiction award and over-all winner award at the SMHAF Writing Competition. In 2023, Tom won the title of East Coast Champion at the Loud Poets Slam East Coast Heat.

They are a shortlisted spoken word poet for Scottish Book Trust’s New Writers Award this year, and are working on towards their first poetry collection.

Exhibited at Pittenweem is a page poetry version of ‘Creature That Breathes’, a poem born out of personal experience and reflection about a sexual assault experience. Through intimate delivery and allegory, it explores the physical, psychological and emotional responses of coping mechanisms and trauma, while also discussing how the individual processes this experience and continue to live. Scan the QR code next to the poem to see a video of Tom performing it in their spoken word poetry film.

Find out more about Tom’s work:

2 Stoned Birds bandcamp

Instagram: @tombirdwords

Spotify “2 Stoned Birds”

Gaelle Chassery

Gaelle Chassery is a multi-passionate artist based in Kilmartin Glen. She enjoys creating art inspired by nature, basing her creations on her love of natural patterns, the healing friendliness of nature, and the ordinary miracles of seasonal changes. Gaelle works with an endless variety of materials and her practice spans many forms and media. She also writes abundantly about the benefits of slowing down while taking the time to notice our inner and outer environment.

‘Soothing Storm’ is part of a series of paintings called ‘Coming Home’. Her paintings are created according to the Principles of Vedic Art founded by Curt Källman, an intuitive way of painting. Gaelle writes more about her painting process here on her blog.

Find out more about Gaelle’s work:

www.gaellechassery.com

Instagram: @gaellechassery_soothing_art

Molly Kent

Based in Edinburgh, Molly is a graduate of Edinburgh College of Art, receiving a Master of Arts with First Class Honours.

Molly Kent is a textile artist who represents mental and physical health notions through mediums such as rug tufting and weaving. They portray contemporary existence regarding social media and internet living and how this affects our perception of self.

Nightmares portrays the artist’s emotions in regards to their nightmares, due to their CPTSD. Trapped within the confines of their bed, surrounded by swirling flames as smoke billows out above them. 

Find out more about Molly’s work:

mollykent.com

Instagram: @mollyhkent

Dani Kerr

Dani Kerr is a multi disciplinary artist based in Glasgow. Dani’s work features themes of the macabre contrasted with modern aesthetics, inspired by everything from pop culture to mythology. Currently, they manage DemonicEros on Etsy, selling their art and other handmade products. Dani hopes their work can help build community, inviting others to view their work on both a visual and human level.

Their work ‘Peat Potions’ was inspired by tales of Scottish folk lore. It depicts peat being thrown into a bucket of water. It was said one should do this when they suspect a neighbour has put a curse on your home. 

Find out more about Dani’s work:

demoniceros.etsy.com

IG: @DemonicEros

Bel Pye

Bel Pye is a dynamic visual artist, writer, and performer based in Glasgow. After studying Contemporary Performance Practice at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Bel has thrived as a facilitator, performer, writer, and visual artist. Their work delves into the everyday art we create to navigate challenging times, focusing on small, accessible acts of protest against injustice. Bel’s practice is deeply rooted in the queer, mad, and chronically ill communities, emphasizing fatigue-informed approaches.

This September, Bel will debut their first solo show, “a soft place to land,” at the Project Ability gallery in Glasgow. The exhibition features textile sculptures meant to be touched, picked up, and played with, inviting visitors to engage with the soft, the silly, and the nonsensical.

Bel’s mini-quilt, ‘Holding it Together(ish)’ is made from offcuts of larger quilts, themselves made with recycled t-shirts. It will be available for sale later this year as part of a fundraiser for Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Find out more about Bel’s work:

belpye.com

Instagram: @chronic_queer

Emma Whigham

Emma is a visual artist based in the Scottish Borders. Her work involves experimenting with materials to explore recurring themes in an abstract way. She often deconstructs and reassembles material, creating work that embodies the dynamic interplay between spontaneity and intent. Exploring composition using the addition or subtraction of shapes, spaces and textures, she aims to introduce order, pulling the parts together to create cohesion within each piece.

Printmaking’s rich potential for investigating these themes has recently occupied her work which, at its heart, employs a tactile approach with which she seeks to understand the materials she uses and their capabilities.

Find out more about Emma’s Work:

emmawhigham.com

Instagram: @emma.whigham

Map of the Autistic Brain

Also on display is ‘Map of the Autistic Brain (Tzipporah Campus)’, a limited A1 giclee print which raises funds for Neuk Collective’s work, available for £100 here as part of our crowdfunder, along with an exclusive zine.

Meet the Artist – Marzena Ostromecka

This month we meet glass artist and Neuk member Marzena Ostromecka, whose playful work adorns our exhibition poster, and will be exhibited at this year’s Glass Biennale. Marzena chats to Elspeth about ‘coming out’ as an autistic artist, her drive to experiment, and the inspirational behind her latest piece.

Interview by Elspeth Wilson

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Hi Marzena! It’s great to be able to speak with you about your art, especially as we are really excited about seeing it appear in the upcoming Neuk Collective exhibition! Does being part of a collective of neurodivergent artists impact your practice or your work at all?

Could you tell us a bit more about your journey with developing your art? We know interactivity is really important to your work – how do you make this inclusive?

In 2018 I graduated from Edinburgh College of Art with an MFA in Glass. After two intense years of studying, experimenting and making I produced my creative child Play_Zone, an interactive glass instrument. At that time, my part-time job involved supporting autistic adults with learning disabilities, many of whom were non-verbal with strong sensory needs. I was inspired by the way they experienced the world and I wanted to make something they could enjoy interacting with.

The music interpreted as colour in glass was the starting point of my work but what really made it special was the interactive element that was designed to give autonomy and choice to the spectator. Play_Zone brought joy to many diverse audiences and validated my need to connect with the viewers through my art.

Inclusivity is of paramount importance to me. This is probably the main reason I didn’t feel comfortable calling myself an artist initially because much of the art world is seen as exclusive, precious, and fragile, targeting a niche audience. I didn’t want to exclude anyone from experiencing my work. I had no specific target audience and I wanted to connect through the universal language of play.

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You work with glass a lot but you use other mediums too. Can you tell us a bit about your process as an artist using different media?

I pursued glass because I fell in love with the medium through designing stained glass windows but somewhere along the way I discovered that connecting and communicating with others was of far greater importance to me as a maker than making pretty things. Having said that, I love pretty things and I think in colours so this of course has an impact on the aesthetic aspects of my work but this alone is not enough. I stand by my values and my work reflects that.

While I appreciate the aesthetic properties of glass, I am not confined to traditional studio glass techniques. I like to explore innovative techniques such as 3D modelling and printing.

Sustainability is a core value of mine, leading me to repurpose and reimagine glass forms and materials from previous projects or to incorporate elements of found objects in my work. I embrace experimentation with various glass techniques, including glass casting, fusing, slumping, painting, and copper foiling. Additionally, I incorporate mixed media such as metal elements of copper and brass sheet and rods, manipulating and bonding them together to expand the creative possibilities of my work.

I am also interested in using electronics to enhance interactivity and audience participation. I enjoy surrendering some control of my work once it’s completed and seeing it come to life through others’ experiences.

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Your series ‘Decatstracted’ has been selected for the British Glass Biennale this year which is very exciting (and the work will also be in the upcoming Neuk Collective exhibition)! Congratulations! What inspired this series and how has your experience been so far as you prepare for the Biennale?

This series of five sculptures was inspired by feline senses. I find intriguing parallels between the experiences of autistic individuals and cats, and I am continuously inspired and amused by the unique ways cats navigate the world.

This body of work is a tribute to my beloved cat Miya and a celebration of her sister Velcro’s fragile life. We lost Miya suddenly two years ago due to a heart condition, a loss that hit me hard and took time to process. A year later, Velcro was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease. My role now, as a cat mum, is to keep her well and comfortable for as long as possible. This can be an all-consuming and upsetting experience, so channelling these emotions through art helps me process difficult feelings.

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Despite all the grief, I had a lot of fun imagining and creating the ‘Decatstructed’ series. I surprised myself with the whimsical outcome. I aimed to embrace sensory and interactive elements in these pieces. They feature different textures, incorporate some mechanical movement, and one of my sculptures even includes real cat whiskers. I’m still developing the digital interactivity that will accompany the sculptures but at this point all I can say is that it involves the sounds of cats.

I was initially concerned about the fragility of my glass sculptures whilst on display and wanted to protect them from being touched and potentially damaged. However, I decided that providing an interactive experience for the viewer was more important to me as an artist. I trust the audience will be gentle with these delicate creatures and will approach them with curiosity and respect. I am excited to be sharing my work and hope the audience will find it amusing and fun.

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You can see more of Marzena’s work on her website and social media:

Website: www.cooljazzcats.com

Instagram: @m.ostromecka

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Photos of work courtesy and copyright of the artist. Portrait photos by Mike Smith.

Quiet Please: A Personal Exploration of Public Inclusivity

Earlier this year, artist Gaelle Chassery undertook a residency with Neuk Collective, looking into quiet spaces in public life. In this post, Gaelle shares her findings and her thoughts on the critical need for these spaces, exploring both the challenges and transformative possibilities they present for neurodivergent people and people with invisible disabilities.

_{Pictured above: Quiet Space designed by original Neuk Collective artist Robyn Benson for the ‘who can think, what can think’ exhibition at Te Tuhi, curated by Bruce E. Phillips. Photo courtesy of Te Tuhi, Aotearoa New Zealand. Photo by Sam Hartnett.}.

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Quiet Please: A Personal Exploration of Public Inclusivity

I recently completed a Research and Development Residency with Neuk Collective/Door in the Wall on the topic of quiet spaces in public places. The aim was to see what is out there in terms of resting spaces and to gauge the level of realism and helpfulness that has gone into designing them.

As a person at the intersection of invisible disabilities, chronic illnesses and neurodiversity, the research process helped me normalise my experience and confirmed that there is a universal lack of accommodation and access for a vast amount of people with many different conditions. This prevents us from going out as often as we need or wish, specifically due to the absence of adequate resting spaces that would help pace our energy through the outing.

Find out more about Gaelle:

Website: https://www.gaellechassery.com/
Instagram: @gaellechassery_soothing_art

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Do quiet spaces in public venues make a difference for you? Why or why not?

Tag us on Instagram – @neukcollective – or twitter – @NeukCollective – to join the conversation

Meet the artist – Funmi Lijadu

This month we meet Funmi Lijadu – Neuk Collective member, writer, and collage artist with an interest in social issues, identity and surrealism.

Profile by Elspeth Wilson

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Hi Funmi! Could you tell us a bit more about your work and what you do?  

I make collage art that often reflects social issues and explores identity. I make animations, and collages on paper primarily. I love dealing with a wide range of themes in my work and enjoy the experimentation that collage allows through cutting and pasting and more digital methods as well. In both 2018 and 2021, I was commissioned by Tate Collective for Black History Month to respond to the work of artists in their collection.

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You recently ran a workshop on collage for Neuk Collective. Can you tell us about what drew you to Neuk in the first place?

I really enjoyed running the art workshop for Neuk! What drew me to Neuk is the conversations that I had about how disability and access need to be prioritised in the art world. Unfortunately, there is much, much more to be done, but I think Neuk is starting very important conversations. 

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Profile written by Elspeth Wilson

Meet the Artist – Elspeth Wilson

We meet Elspeth Wilson – writer, poet, and Neuk Collective member – to talk embodiment, appreciating pop culture, and finding community with other artists.

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Hi Elspeth! Could you say a little bit about who you are and what you do?

I’m a writer and poet who writes across non-fiction, fiction and poetry. I’m super interested in hybridity and blurring the lines between different genres. I often find myself coming back to the question of how we live in our bodies and I hope my work can widen the possible answers to that question. I’m really interested in how we make our bodies homes too!

I started out writing nature writing – ever since I was a child, I’ve loved spending time outdoors, exploring, playing and getting to know the world around me. I try to keep that sense of curiosity and playfulness in my work, but I also am very aware that writing about ‘nature’ in an era of climate crisis has a duty to confront that and even to problematise what we think of as ‘nature’. For instance, I’m fascinated in the distinctions we draw between animals we consider ‘wildlife’ and those we consider ‘livestock’. I hope my work can help pick apart some of the euphemistic language we use around other beings and consider different possible futures; I truly believe art – particularly art created by marginalised people – has a crucial role to play in climate justice.

Since I started writing, I’ve written more and more fiction and poetry but both are still very much imbued with a strong sense of nature and place. I’m currently working on my second novel and my debut novel, These Mortal Bodies, is coming out with Simon and Schuster in 2025 which I’m really excited about (as well as a little nervous!).

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You write about pop culture in your work a lot. Can you say a bit more about that?

and like a reclamation. It was a bit like unmasking something – here were these things that I was so invested in, that I loved, that helped me to discover myself and I was able to re-examine all those aspects through writing.

It was also about shedding shame – often as neurodivergent people we can have a special interest in a piece of pop culture or love a certain world so much and find it supportive of our mental health. That’s something I wanted to celebrate; poetry is often about articulating emotions and experiences that can feel hard to describe in any other medium. In poems like ‘In Sims, I WooHoo with a Girl’ I wanted to communicate how euphoric and validating pop culture can be. Although my more recent projects don’t focus as much on pop culture having that kind of poppy, irreverent vibe at the heart of my work will always be so important to me. I thoroughly reject the idea of there being things we should and shouldn’t write about or things that are ‘worthy’ of art and poetry and things that are not.

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What drew you to Neuk Collective?

Community is probably the short answer! I’d been feeling quite lonely for a while in the art world because opportunities often felt inaccessible and a lot of things were centred in London. I’d made some really close friends through writing pre-Covid but in lockdown I moved away from where I’d been living previously, and was looking to connect with other artists across a range of mediums as I expanded my practice. I was also just really keen for any information about accessibility and neurodiversity in the arts so when I saw Neuk’s initial research project on neurodivergent artists and their experiences I thought yes! I previously worked as a mixed methods researcher and this kind of research felt so sorely missing – I knew I’d found a special space.

What impact has being part of the collective had for you?

working with neurodivergent artists – or any artists really! Neuk pays fairly and on time, supports the development of its members and is really transparent and open. Whilst these things should be expected, they are all too infrequently provided in the art world, and it can become easy to settle for far less than ideal working conditions, especially when opportunities feel so few and far between. This is especially difficult for neurodivergent artists as in such a precarious world our needs are often (wilfully) overlooked, and it can feel difficult to ask for accommodations when even the most basic things like fair, on time payment are not being provided. Neuk’s work and being part of the collective has shown me a practical, hopeful vision for what a different art world could be like

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You can see more of Elspeth’s work on her website and social media:

Website: www.elspethwilson.co.uk

Instagram: @elspethwrites

Twitter: @elspethwriter

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Photos courtesy and copyright of the artist.

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