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.