Mind map of me

Mind Map of Me

This is a great digram of me because this is how I imagine my brain to look: Lots of colours and lots of chaos...

Because dyslexia has stopped my from understanding so much, understanding myself has always been something that is important to me. I feel that I need to have a grounding as to who I am and my brain is constantly struggling analysing things until BANG there is a magical moment where something makes sense and it really makes sense- be this a situation/experience, why someone else acts as they do or why I am like I am. 

I am an emotional person and when I feel things I really feel them and most of the time I can't put these emotions into words or even explain anything more than passion or hate, excitement or deep sadness. Who knows if this is a symptom of my previous M.E (Chronic Fatigue Symptom-that lingers around like a bad smell) and how there was such a harsh contrast between the Ups and Downs/Boom and Bust. As much as M.E is destroying it has definitely shaped my personality, it has made me a very gregarious, full on and colourful person. It has taught me to embrace opportunities because for a year I could physically do nothing that I enjoyed even though I mentally wanted to which was soul destroying.

I came home from college to tackle this mind-map. I knew that I needed to be in my room, which was full of me and have inspiration pop up through the day and to allow myself to be distracted. Everything is 100% joined up and connected and I don't even feel that this mind-map exemplifies this thoroughly.

I am definitely a gregarious friendly person who likes talking and getting to know everyone. I also care about everyone. This is on a personal level with friends that I would drop everything and go out of my way to support them and make sure they are okay but broader in that I like teaching. Not particularly the instructing side but getting to know the children personally and seeing their development. This is evident in my holiday art club helping, seeing the same children grow up and become better at art and more independent but also in my tap teaching, seeing the children practice and overcome their initial struggling. 
I over analyse everything in every aspect of life and because I feel things so strongly it really frustrates me when I can't empathise with someone or help them in some way. Also due to the way that I process things verbalising thoughts and discussing things sparks ideas and makes sense of things. This is what I found so important about meeting my exchange partner from Germany. It opened a whole new world and a whole new culture. I was extremely motivated to be able to communicate with her and her friends even though there was a language barrier. It is so lovely that we have been friends for 5 years now and I feel accepted by everyone I have met and befriended over there who I still contact on facebook, partly because I am really nosey and want to know what they are up to in their parallel life as I only see them in short bursts. I love travel, especially around Europe (maybe because it is different but still similar) and Germany is definitely somewhere in my future.

Loosening up has been something which I need to tackle in all aspects of my life. This is something which my dance teachers have told me forever, I need to relax, keep my shoulders down and not be so focused on my feet and to perform with my whole body. To an extent I am a perfectionist and every rhythm has to be perfect and even when I know it my brain (dyslexia) is so forgetful and uptight itself that it is never confident it is right. 
This is something that definitely also affects my art. My work has always been described as tight and I am not happy with it until it looks 'right'. Coming to this course has taught me that a good piece of imagery can be playful and loose and unrealistic and I want to explore this and become comfortable with it. I am exploring this at the moment through continuous line drawing as a start. 
In my life everything has to be planned down to a tee and I have to know exactly what to expect and what is going to happen. This is something I blame living in a small village and being incredibly busy has made me become. However it is something I do really want to change. Coming to Uni I have become a extremely less uptight person. This is due to how spontaneous social life in Leeds is and how nobody has a plan ever so I have to adapt to that. Also spending so much time with a particular human being taught me to worry about the things that were worth worrying about but also taught me how to enjoy chilling and not doing anything and not being super busy. Because I am so busy with different types of creative practices I feel that this has shaped my artwork in that I like multi media and collaborating different materials through collage because my life is a bit like a collage. I can't really pin point myself with one interest, I am passionate about many things...

Because I missed out on so much when I was 16 it has made everything very precious to me. This is shown through how I don't like making mistakes. This is evident in my art and performing. That every final outcome has to be perfect (and it never is). Therefore I am beginning to learn that making mistakes are OK, you learn from them and can constantly improve. This also links into every day life and being a student in Leeds. There are many a night (my boogie can be both a solution and a catastrophe)/experience that mistakes have been made but are they really mistakes? They are things that are learnt, that can sculpt the future and what comes next.

Art college has definitely let me find myself. For the first time I feel comfortable that I fit in because there isn't really a type to fit into. This has meant that appearance wise I am able to confidently wear all of the patterned clothing that I love and it not look bizzare and out of place. I can also happily be myself and because of this I can actually figure out who I am and who I want to become.