Neglected Spaces For Neglected People: Finding Triangles Again // Dr Aimee Grant
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Dr Aimee Grant reflects on her participation in Making Space for Art Magical Women workshops and Magical Journeys workshops. These are like online art studios where artists and creatives can gather to make art and share relaxed spaces.
When I was two or three years old, I used to be told I was "cantankerous like your Papa (Grandpa)" by my Mum. Famously, when I "did not get my own way" I used to bang my head on the floor. Apparently I stopped after banging my head on concrete and it really hurting me.
After that, I was given a "Wendy House" for Christmas, it was made of thin black plastic poles which made a frail skeleton of a tiny house. A colourful thick plastic sheet provided an enclosed space, with a clear flap for the door.
I loved my Wendy House, which I filled with treasured possessions (mostly bags within bags, nested like Russian dolls, and pieces of paper). It literally was my first neuro-divergent space; it didn't need to be tidy (unlike my bedroom, which I, unfortunately, did not understand how to tidy), it was too small for company and I could spend as long as I liked in it, except for meals.
Made in a Making Space for Art Workshop
Alongside starting school and the world becoming harder for me to understand, the Wendy House became too small for me. I needed new neurodivergent spaces. I watched the same film - The Goonies - over and over again, until eventually my mum recorded over it.
I needed to adapt again. I began going to my bedroom and taking a single sheet of paper and drawing identical symmetrical triangles all over it, using a ruler and pencil. The triangles were then coloured brightly, always staying within the lines. One piece of paper could last me days.
Over the next 30 years, many spaces (both physical and social) were not fully open to me. I always needed quiet time alone to "decompress" afterwards; to try to understand why people were unkind to me.
And then, a few years ago, something truly devastating happened. I was told that - because of my sensory processing issues, attributed at the time to dyslexia (diagnosed age 23) - there would no longer be any physical space for me at work.
The stress of this caused everything to spiral and soon my physical health collapsed - asthma flare ups requiring frequent emergency treatment, led to fatigue, pain and a permanent headache. My mental health was next to fail (helped along by more difficulties at work): my anxiety spiralled. I felt like things would never get better - I didn't have a space in the world anymore, confined to a lovely home that felt a lot like prison because I couldn't go anywhere else, I didn't see anybody most days.
I had planned to run a marathon that year, having run five half marathons the year before. Instead I struggled to walk to the bathroom to urinate. Stuck in a room, alone all day, losing my productive roles.
I managed to pull myself together enough to find a new job; less prestigious, but using my skills and interesting enough. The key reason I took the job - as I nervously told them prior to and at the interview - was the employer was explicitly supportive of disability. They agreed to all of the adjustments I needed for the interview AND offered more. They then agreed to all of the adjustments I told them I'd need to work there. I began to feel hopeful that things could be better.
Around this time I bought an electric wheelchair (£3K - ouch! - why is disability stuff so expensive? I'm fortunate that I was relatively well paid), Bringing me a limited freedom; still constrained by battery life, how steep a hill is, if there are dropped curbs, or ramps into buildings.
Made in a Magical Women’s workshop
When using my wheelchair, I was also constrained by harassment from white men - touching me, holding on to my wheelchair, all the while telling me ableist jokes or making sexist comments. My anxiety about going out increased; this wasn't a space that was designed for me, or safe for me. Previously I would have run away, instead I started carrying rape alarms - one in each pocket - for outings like going to hospital appointments (after a frightening incident with a man in the crowded gynaecology waiting room - literally nowhere is safe!) and the post office.
Around a month later, I saw a post on Facebook, shared by an autistic friend. 12 autistic traits in women. I had them all. I spoke to another autistic woman who knew me well. She said she definitely thought I was autistic - I guess, because of ableism, people don't generally say that unprompted, which is a real shame.
I decided that I would pay the £900 a private assessment cost, in order to ensure my sensory needs were acknowledged and respected in my new job. Otherwise it would be a few years wait for an NHS assessment.
I was diagnosed as autistic in August 2019, aged 37.
Unfortunately my new employer wasn't as supportive as they said they would be, and the majority of the agreed adjustments weren't put in place.
Again, my mental health collapsed, followed by my physical health getting worse. I was placed on disability special leave, awaiting adjustments. Six months later I'm still there.
It was at this time I nervously - after several false starts where I didn't make it out of the house, or to the venue- started to attend a women only trauma sensitive Tai chi class, provided by Women's Aid. The all-female staff were incredibly kind, gentle and supportive. Being in a women-only environment allowed me to relax from my constant fear of street harassment and assault
When COVID19 resulted in lockdown in March 2020, the Women's Aid classes went online, meaning I could attend more than 1 a week - I did not have enough energy to go out too often. There was a drawing class I fancied, but it seemed so out of my league, I put it to the back of my mind. Until one day, remembering a tiny bit of encouragement from Mr Lyon, my year 9 art teacher, I signed up for the class and felt obliged to attend because I'd registered.
Surprisingly, it really reduced my anxiety and made me feel I could achieve new things. If there was an artist hidden inside me, what else might I be capable of?
A few weeks later, having drawn sunflowers, an antique lantern and a lemon tree reasonably well, I found out about Magical Women. It sounded brilliant. I quickly told Elinor that I would attend and paid for the block of 4 sessions to make sure I'd go.
The drawing classes I went to were guided, copying a drawing. I bought a cheap art set from Amazon, no idea what to do with the different materials (oil, acrylic, watercolours, pastels), but I was expecting to be guided. In the first (online) session, Elinor essentially told us to create what we wanted to, what we were drawn to, keeping the camera on her work for reassurance. She started creating an abstract colourful piece. I got out some watercolours, familiar from art lessons at school, and began putting paint on the paper, experimenting as I went.
It was in my third Magical Women workshop that I found my way back to the triangles that had soothed me as a child. No longer feeling the need to make them uniform, I drew and coloured simultaneously, intuitively placing shapes. In the next workshop, my triangles and other shapes were big, bold, layered with multiple colours.
Created during a Making Space for Art Workshop, by Aimee Grant
Alongside this art, we, the Magical Women, always referred to as neurodivergent artist by Elinor shared experiences. I spoke about some of the difficulties I've had fitting in - as well as being neurodiverse, I use an electric wheelchair and need to wear a facemask in public (not such an unusual thing now!). People's negative reactions to both (which made spaces less dangerous and more accessible) had made life very difficult for me.
Other members of the workshop shared their art, and sometimes their experiences. I heard women who were beautiful, intelligent, creative and who "looked normal" (an awful ableist phrase, but I live in an ableist society and I'm not immune to ableism myself), who you'd happily go to the pub for a drink with, talk about the difficulties that I had.
I felt less alone.
Previously I had intellectually known other people had similar issues, but to hear your own experiences and thoughts come out of somebody else's mouth was immensely powerful.
I now feel more confident that I am not wrong; the space is wrong.
Over the past few months of lockdown, when I have been required to "shield" at home, I have realised the extent of the inappropriateness of most of the public spaces I am used to going to, and how much energy the bright lights, loud noises, environmental scents which I am allergic to, and need to "mask" suck out of me. As a disabled woman with fatigue related conditions, I do not have energy to spare!
Made in a Making Space for Art Workshop, Aimee Grant
From a nervous child, to a neurodiverse adult, colourful triangles are a constant thread. I know now that the use of shapes and bold colours continue to be an important artistic focus for me. As well as being beautiful, their creation helps me work through difficult memories, to understand the lack of safe space for me in the world; both physical and social.