A Gallery of Undrawn Drawings
‘Stimming’ describes the restless or repetitive movements many people do to soothe themselves, often while being expected to sit still, or listen, or be quiet. It can sometimes manifest as scratching the skin, pulling ones hair, grinding teeth, repetitive hand movements or gestures. Recently, my friend the artist Sam Metz has developed a practice method called ‘Drawing as Stimming’ to expand ‘the notion of embodied communication as a defining purpose in art making’. Sam’s ‘Drawing as Stimming’ gaining ground in all kinds of spaces . You can find out more information on this link, and I will be updating with new references when they are available.
Here is a gallery of images I have collected to use for stimming purposes. It’s usually textures, trees and skies to draw patterns from. I love broken, cracked, stripped walls and the uneven patchworks of different surfaces on pavements where I live in Peckham, south London. The image at the top of this page is of a small paper bag that was greasy and had stuck to the lumpy tarmac pavement.
(Scroll down to below the gallery of collected images for another gallery of ‘Stim’ drawings.)
Images to stim with
I am using ‘Drawing as Stimming’ as part of my practice research for my PhD at Kingston University.
My research is an embodied journey of sensation and thought.  It is about Complex Post-Traumatic Stress (CPTSD), a specific form of PTSD resulting from repeated adversity, often association with childhood abuse, captivity and military conflict. It is being written, explained, spoken, drawn, and reflected on from within a CPTSD-survivor’s mind-body.
I write as a I think, think as I write and learn as I perform the embodied actions of a researcher wrapped in the multiple layers and complications of energy impairment, trauma and neurodivergence. I channel a reflexive process into the business of research and the production of knowledge. Like any writer of post-traumatic narrative, I repeat myself, my process is fragmented, sometimes chaotic. The wish within me, and the pressure on me, are to make my work cogent and academically acceptable. This disrupts and opens opportunities. I have my own way of working and no other. As I write now, my dyspraxic hands slip and slide, making unnerving formatting changes. Often I spin in a maelstrom of repetition and fragments.
I resort to drawing when no words will come. New knowledge of CPTSD and ‘neurodivinity’ will come in new forms. If this knowledge is to come from the bodies and minds that are formed by trauma and attention deficit, it must be allowed to come in all its broken beauty.
Stims
