My amazing ADHD

Hillary has been diagnosed with ADHD since she was 19. Lately it has been taking a prominent role in her life, and it brought about some thoughts she wanted to share:

My brain works very differently from most other people's and it's hard to even explain sometimes. This makes life very difficult in the corporate world, because ADHD people are not good at things like error free data enter and other repetitive, mundane tasks. What they are good at is coming up with ideas that other people wouldn't and making connections that other people would miss. These are very valuable skills to have as a worker, as an artist and as a person. My ADHD is a big part of why I started making jewelry, and then why I wanted to do more and work differently, which eventually led to being here. It is why I have to do jewelry and dance and art, and why I love them so much. Those with ADHD often have a creative nature, and are often quirky. Quirky creativity describes me and what I do to a tee. I love creating new jewelry and new sketches, and I love coming up with new ideas.

ADHD opens new doors, but it erases some altogether. I will never be able to consistently remember to turn off the lights, enter numbers correctly every time, catch all grammar errors and typos when proofreading, find my keys when I need them, not leave piles of papers and stuff in the house, or intrinsicly understand what organized is. It doesn't matter how hard I try, certain things will never happen the way everyone would like.

That said, I wouldn't give up my ADHD. Like I said, it's part of what drives me to create and part of what makes my creations so different. Without the drive to create and the drive to try new things, there might not be an Artful Unity. Most people with one jewelry business, wouldn't necessarily move on to 2. I, however, had to try it or it would drive me crazy for the rest of my days.

I love myself, who I am, what I create, and my life. None of these things would be the same without my ADHD. I would be a different person, which is the last thing I want. Some days, I wish that I didn't have certain problems that come with the ADHD and some days I wish I could be a little more like everyone else so that we could understand each other. However, if it went away, I don't know that I would ever come up with the unique ideas I do
or be driven enough to pick up a pen and pencil to sketch them knowing that I am most definitely not a sketch artist. But, I am who I am: the designs jump into my head and beg to be made. I don't have the right materials to make them, so they beg me not to forget them; so, I sketch.



Thanks to my ADHD, there's one more design that won't be forgotten, and one more idea that has a chance to become a beautiful piece of jewelry. How crazy and how awesome is that?

Artful Unity Joins Esmarts Team!

We are proud to announce that we have joined the Etsy Social Marketing Arts Team, a "global collaborative of mixed media artisans intent on further understanding and applying eCommerce advertising and promotion techniques." It took us a lot of searching to find the right group of people to join up with, and we're glad we finally found this group of talented artists and artisans who like to use technology as much as we do!

Hillary looked through the shops of her team members and wanted to give you a quick taste of some of the amazing things they have created.

Hillary loves the seemingly infinite nature of this swirl ring by Jewelry By Jer.

This painting by Coastal Artist is a beautiful representation of one of Hillary's favorite flowers.

Kicking Bear makes some great Native American items including "Where the Wolf Ran", a handmade gourd bowl carefully painted with an etherial scene of a wolf and other parts of nature.

Magpie Dreams proves that We are in good company as artisan jewelers with her unusual and gorgeous "Waves of Blue" earrings.

There are many other talented people in this group and many other great items that we didn't list here. To find our items, you can follow the previous link or type "esmarts" into the Etsy search.

In addition to maintaining thier own shops, many of these artists have come together to help others. eSMArts has a team shop dedicated to helping others. Every item in the shop was donated by a team member for the purpose of helping someone else. Right now shop sales are going to help a fellow team member who's computer died and who's primary source of income is etsy.

We are very glad to be a member of this team and look forward to contributing to team blogs and other endeavors.

from sketch to art - part 1

Hillary created a sketch this past week of a necklace that she would like to make. Over the next few months she will work on a prototype of this piece and then a finished version. We will be posting her progress periodically. Here's the sketch she made:



We'll post her progress as soon as we know anything.
Have a great week!

High Standards

This is sad. I have writer's block. It is Sunday, past the time for Artful Unity to post, and everything I come up with seems boring and mundane. In fact, it's probably fine, but I'm an artist, and I won't publish just anything, I won't give just any gift, and I won't sell just any piece of jewelry. Sorry for the delay, but I don't have a blog post that I'm proud of yet. If I come up with an extra one this week, I'll be sure to post it.

Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite!

--Hillary