The Road Back to Art

I've started to get back into art.

When I was young, I loved doing arts and crafts; but somewhere along the way, I lost my confidence. I went through a lot of bullying as a kid and the constant criticisms internalized and became negative self-talk.

I'd start to draw or paint, but the sketch didn't look like I wanted it to in my head, and I'd hear all the criticisms I'd gathered. I would get discouraged and stop drawing. I felt good about other things I did, like jewelry design and floral arrangements, but I stopped drawing.

For a while after my injuries, writing and doing anything with my hands was impossible. Part of my occupational therapy was coloring, so I started doing that. My dexterity improved, and when I started this blog, I started doing some graphic design: website headers, graphics for posts, etc. I improved at that and decided to try out digital art too.

I got a stylus for my tablet and some apps and tried it out. At first, it was just doodles that I didn't even save; but then they started to look good! I started to try to challenge myself to recreating pictures. Once I felt comfortable with that, I started developing my own style, mixing real, often anatomical drawings, with various other subjects to draw attention to emotions and issues such as sexism or ableism.

I've been going through a really stressful time that has made writing more difficult, so I've been creating a lot of art. It's difficult to organize my thoughts into words right now, but I can mentally escape into my art. It's been cathartic to create art about the issues I experience and also using my scans as a base. I've created several using my brain MRI scans and some using anatomical drawings of the parts that experience the most symptoms.

“We Asked For Help” by Lori Adams

“Wishful Thinker”by Lori Adams

I hope to be able to share my art in galleries and exhibits sometime, as well as online! Check out my Tiktok for time lapse videos creating some of the pieces!