I’m taking part in Diverging Art & Craft Fest! I’m very pleased to be taking part in Diverging Art & Craft Fes an entirely online festival of art making, craft, curiosity and neurodivergent creativity, running from 11–13 September. I’ll be bringing along a Wonky Zine Workshop - with a session on how to create a Zine from your special interest - which feels rather wonderfully appropriate.

We have rather exciting news from the Genderwave Field: The Oracle of Gender Designation has been shortlisted for a Pitch Your Project bursary from a-space arts! The Oracle began as a strange, playful collection of games, objects, sounds and slightly suspicious officials asking what might happen if gender was something you could spin for, draw from a deck, discover in a box or have solemnly rubber-stamped by a Clerk.

This is not a personal blog, but I would be omitting an important part of this work if I didn’t share what is in my heart today. There have been some difficult moments since my last post, following a health scare (not mine, a friends), my local community erupted with a lot of rage and hurt (I was not anywhere near it, but it felt horribly close to home).

On Sunday I spent a magical few hours walking beside the River Itchen in company with local campaigners and artists and Southampton River Rights, a local group working to get the river recognised as a legal entity in the same way the Wye was recently given this status. Although I hadn’t visited recently to walk, I know this river well repeated visits, driving over the bridge a few times a week, sketches, conversations, and quiet attention and walking from the source near Cheriton a few years back.

Transforming shouldn't break your circle I think one of the loneliest feelings is realising somebody quietly stepped away from your life without ever being honest about why. As a neurodivergent person, these unexplained ruptures are, sadly, common. It is usually not an argument or falling out, just a slow cooling, a silence, a quiet unfriend on social media, a switch to polite friendliness rather than the real thing.

Salt spirals, osprey chicks, and the lengthening light Hello friend, We seem to have tipped fully into that part of the year where everything is alive at once. The light is stretching late into the evening, the garden is growing faster than I can entirely keep up with, and I’ve been quietly obsessed with watching the Osprey chicks hatch at Poole Harbour via the…

For centuries, salt was made there from seawater gathered from the marshes and slowly boiled down in great pans over fire. It was once one of the major salt-producing areas on the south coast. The landscape still remembers this if you walk it carefully enough. Strange banks and channels, slightly raised mounds. Water held in rectangles and sharp edges - marshes that feel shaped as much as grown.

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: Neurodivergent Art Club - get sh*t done session. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.

On tracing a broken lineage through conversation with the land

On tracing a broken lineage through conversation with the land There’s a version of this work I could try to make neat and acceptable, folk art, indigenous English art - by connecting it to provable history and practices. I could reach for history books, trace lines backwards, gather scraps of place names and artifacts like clues to a solvable mystery. I could try to rebuild something that looks convincing from a distance.

Hello friend, This week has felt very, very alive. As the first week of May in the Northern Hemisphere should, frankly. Things are growing so fast you can almost see it happening. The radishes in my garden seem to have gone from hopeful little leaves to actual radishes in what feels like a long afternoon, while the bindweed, of course, is also thriving with all the confidence of something that has never once doubted itself.

Hello friend, ItHello friend, It’s that moment in the year again where everything feels like it’s leaning forward. Light stretching late into the evening, green pushing up everywhere ( so suddenly!), warmth arriving with a bit too much enthusiasm and somewhere in the middle of it all, my focus has quietly packed its bags and wandered off into a hedge.

I’ve been making small things in the garden these past couple of weeks as I journey once more into this project. These are not finished pieces and they are not meant to be, just traces. Leaves pressed into inkpads and lifted like brief ghosts. Bark and stone offering their textures through rubbings. A putty rubber holding a shape just long enough to print it.

As spring transitions to Beltain, many neurodivergent artists experience disorientation due to changes in light, temperature, and routine. These shifts can disrupt their creative processes, making it crucial to adjust expectations and embrace flexibility. Small anchors and understanding that these feelings signify adaptation rather than failure can aid in navigating this period.

The complexities of processing emotions, particularly for neurodivergent individuals and how art serves as a vital tool for emotional expression and understanding. Creativity helps bridge the gap between unidentifiable feelings and words, making emotions more accessible.

Reflecting on the emotional complexities surrounding climate change and societal collapse, emphasizing the impact on vulnerable communities.

I keep trying, every so often, to become a more “coherent” artist. You know the version - the one with a clear niche, a tidy body of work, a recognisable style you could point to and say, ah yes, that’s them. The kind of artist that makes sense at a glance and is easy to explain and (because this is part of how I make my living, after all) easy to market.

A reflection on the tension between local intimacy and global perspective, sparked by views from Artemis 2. While close perspectives foster connection, they risk exclusion and nationalism. Conversely, broad views can dilute feelings. The challenge lies in balancing both realms, promoting a love for place while embracing a shared humanity.

I used to run my creative life like it was an emergency. The Art House years, when it ran as a venue that is, were brilliant in so many ways. We built something real, we held space, we made art happen. My day-to-day life? Stress, long hours, too much people-ing, not enough quiet, money anxiety humming in the background like a broken fridge (we had those quite regularly, too).

I’ve been circling (or is that spiralling?) a project called JourneySpiral for about a decade now. Not because it isn’t ready, but because I haven’t quite been ready to meet it properly. It came into being before a lot of changes in my life - I sometimes think it LED me to those changes - the most significant of which was my discovery of my nonbinary identity back in 2018, but later relinquishing my role and the identity that came with it as somebody running a physical arts space.

Yesterday I walked a stretch of the coast wearing the Coat of Hopes, a garment stitched with people’s fears and wishes for the future of this earth. It was heavy, but also comforting. A slow walk, a smaller life than I once had, and a reminder that showing up still matters.

I don’t know about you, but January has been asking me to move like the world isn’t on fire (even though it very much is). The news keeps knocking, loud and insistent, waving its arms and demanding an instant reaction. It’s a strange month for neurodivergent artists: the cultural push for new starts, big plans, sharp edges… paired with bodies and brains that are still very much in winter mode.

December has officially announced itself, and judging from Missy Parrot’s firm refusal to wear the Santa hat and Missy Dog’s tragic attempt at tolerating an elf costume last year, many of us are entirely convinced by the season. Honestly, that feels about right. This time of year gets loud, bright, busy and bossy, the kind of atmosphere that makes ND brains want to hide under a blanket with snacks and noise-cancelling headphones.

Read more on ND Art Club Substack here and here

A place for creative neurodivergent people to share inspiration, tips and support - self diagnosed is fine! Run by Jez Franck.

Resistance is one of my favourite things, when it is resistance to capitalist systems, that is! There’s another kind of resistance that shows up when you’re circling a good idea. Not the “I’m tired and would prefer to nap” kind, but the deeper, suspiciously dramatic kind. The kind that whispers: Not now. Not yet. Maybe never. Let’s reorganise the art supplies instead.

At Loch Trool, I boiled a handful of fallen acorns and watched the colour bloom. The ink darkened slowly - oak, peat, and patience - a reminder that creativity doesn’t always need speed or certainty, just presence.

I came to Scotland to get some space - to walk, listen, and think about what’s next. The plan was open-ended: just Nicola and I (and Missy Boo), a sketchbook, and the kind of silence you can hear in your bones. But, as these things go, peace didn’t exactly roll out the welcome mat. The restlessness followed me north, packed neatly between my socks and sketchbook.

Neurodivergent Art Club is on this Thursday 2–4pm, then we’ll take a two-week break before returning with both the usual afternoon sessions and a new shorter early-evening slot, 6–7pm, starting in November. Same format, same gentle co-working space for creative brains that don’t run on factory settings. While I’m up here in Scotland surrounded by indecent amounts of moss and dramatic skies, I’ve been thinking about time.

We’re now well past the equinox - that brief, delicate point of balance in the year where day and night meet eye to eye. The hedgerows are heavy with berries, the evenings are cooling, and the energy around us is quietly shifting inward. So it feels like a good moment to say something I think many of us need to hear:

Lately in Neurodivergent Art Club, a few people have shared something that I think many of us know deeply: “I’m feeling directionless… hard to apply my mind to anything… still triggering post-exertional malaise… it’s hard to balance my long-neglected social needs with stretching my creative muscles when the basics already take most of my capacity.” “I feel like I’m going round and round in ever-decreasing circles… can’t seem to organise for toffee, or get anything meaningful done…”

I’ve just returned from a few dreamy, windy, colourful days at Green Gathering, where I had the joy of co-holding the Queer Space in the Campaigns Field. It was… a lot of things. Tender. Tiring. Hopeful. Hilarious. Full of connection, curiosity, wild weather, and the kind of community that grows when you make space for people to just be.

Quickly posting from a field to show you the Queer Dome, Green Gathering, in the Campaigns field Linky to more info here

Last week, someone in the Neurodivergent Art Club shared a reflection that struck a chord with others in the group - and with me! “I’m really enjoying making art and being creative in the group setting, but I’m finding it a challenge to get going at home.” They gave consent for suggestions - and the conversation that followed felt too rich not to share more widely.

Sometimes, the world is too much. Sometimes, your mind fogs over, your energy vanishes, or the climate breaks your heart. In those moments, planning fails. But preparing?That’s different. To prepare is to send something kind for your future self.Not a demand - a lifeline.Not a calendar full of boxes, but a handful of soft tools for when you need them most.

Some days, the very sight of a traditional to-do list feels like a trap. Every unchecked box whispers failure. Every item not crossed off becomes another tiny weight. For many neurodivergent creatives, to-do lists don’t work because they assume we’re operating on linear timelines, predictable energy, and stable executive function. So what if we made a different kind of list?

Mantle at God’s House Tower I’m very pleased to share that Mantle, one of the JourneySpiral artefacts, will be part of the upcoming exhibition Inside the Artist’s Studio: 20 Years of the Arches at God’s House Tower in Southampton. This exhibition is a celebration of the messy, magical, half-formed places where art begins - and often, where it continues to live.

Small Worlds is a giant installation of 3D spheres created by artists, communities, and schools in Hampshire takes over The Winchester Gallery – FREE EXHIBITION My piece, 'Threadwalker', will be part of the installation. Threadwalker is a small world held in the palm - part talisman, part compass. This sphere is a fragment of the JourneySpiral, inscribed with symbols from an imagined lost language that never quite belonged to empire.