Analyze: Adventures in Art, Business, and ADHD

Analyze is my artist book that loosely explores my adventures in trying to have an "art business", and how living with ADHD has impacted my development.

It started with my attraction to analysis pads, with their columns and lines. From there, I utilized drawings (from my childhood and adulthood,) stencils, collage, and found objects.

Below is a slideshow of the book. You can watch from beginning to end, or you can pause it and look at the still images by hovering your cursor over it and clicking the "pause" button that appears in the upper left corner.

Some pages in Analyze have text, either handwritten or typed on my new, old typewriter. It may be difficult to read the text in the slideshow, so under the slideshow I have provided images with the corresponding text with each. 

Added Bonus: if you make it to the bottom of the page, you can see a little video of the check ledger featured in Analyze in action!

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Still Images with Text:

Page One:

"I'm Special!"

I was pushing 40.
After tooling around, as they say, for most of my adult life, I decided to get serious. I was really going to throw myself into building an art career. I wanted to see if I could “make it” as an artist. I have always been told I have a “special” talent.
I thought to myself, “I’m smart, I can do this!”
I mean, how hard could it possibly be???

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Page Nine:

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Facts Salient to This Book.

ADHD is a condition that creates problems with time management, prioritization, organization, and emotional control.

The prefrontal cortex has a lot to do with developing these skills, and that section of the brain is SMALLER in children with ADHD.

Some people’s brains will grow as they mature, so that you can barely tell the difference at all.
Girls tend to be less hyperactive than boys, and are usually just really spacy.

People with ADHD also tend to have problems with social skills. They are more prone to miss social cues, verbal, and non-verbal communication from others.

Hyperfocus is another trait. It is as if all that missing attention roars back to life and consumes everything in its path. This can be a great advantage when creating art, but is terrifically inconvenient at other times.

Everyone who has ADHD develops different coping strategies, some productive, and others destructive. One thing is for certain: it has a dramatic effect on how a personality develops, and will shape a person’s life trajectory in profound ways.

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Page 11:

According to Barkley (2015) by the time they reach adulthood, most individuals with ADHD “have suffered years of feeling demoralized, discouraged and ineffective because of a long-standing history of frustration and failures in school, work, family, social, and daily adaptive domains.

Many report a chronic and deep-seated sense of underachievement and intense frustration over squandered opportunities and are at a loss to explain why they cannot seem to translate their obvious assets into more positive outcomes.”

Barkley, R.A. (2015). Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Handbook for Diagnosis and Treatment, 4th ed. New York: Guilford Publications.

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Pages 13 and 13a:

"Incomplete too slow!"

"Take a little more time Leslie and your writing will be neater!"



"What does the clock tell me?"
"It's _________ o'clock."

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Page 16a

"Dear Leslie, your talent is not a trained dog.

signed,
Your Higher Self"

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Page 17

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:

1. Food, water, warmth, and rest. Basic needs.
- Check!
2. Security and safety. A safe environment.
- Check!
3. Belonging and love. Connection and companionship.
- Check!
4. Esteem and prestige. Respect and admiration.
- Check!
5. Self-Actualization. Reaching one's full potential...
-???

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Page 23:

Certificate of Acknowledgement

"She Tried!"

In honor of your efforts to be a "Professional Artist," we present this to affirm you did indeed try pretty hard for quite some time. You are hereby released from any and all efforts to prove anything to anybody, ever.

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Checkbook Ledger: (You made it to the end!)