Picture a person who walks into a room, picks up a brush and seemingly begins to mix and match random abstract shapes and colors onto a canvas. When this person is finished, you’re not quite sure what you’re looking at, but you’re convinced that what you just witnessed was the result of a very carefully planned out action by the artist. If you weren’t reading this in an
autism newsletter you’d probably think that we’re referring to Jackson Pollock. We’re not. We’re not referring to any one particular member of our arts program either.

Instead we’re referring to an entire population. As we see it, the autism spectrum puts a new face on the meaning of art. How fortunate we are to have a small segment of that population in our classrooms! For us, an arts program that orbits around the autism spectrum seems like an inevitable match. As you know, the function of seeing is part of the spectrum disorder that constitutes autism. So a person with autism is receiving visual stimuli in a way that the rest of us are not. In short, they see things differently. There are literally dozens of books that use the title “The Art of Seeing,” a phrase that implies that seeing is not solely mechanical. Once the mind enters the equation, seeing becomes subjective. It becomes an art. So why isn’t everyone asking the question: “what is the person with autism seeing? “

Autism can be viewed as part of art’s full existence.  It’s as if art has been waiting all these millennia for autism to appear, so that it could finally find a new spectrum of expression. This union can be compared to the instinctive relationship that human beings have with language. Human kind has been communicating for millions of years. It took a more evolved mind to employ the deeper layers of meaning that language has to offer. Eventually poets emerged to give language the romance it longed for. For centuries, art has been romanticized by geniuses with “big brains.” But now we have a new roster of geniuses, with even “bigger brains,” who are here to offer a new subtext to art. Like all art, we can dismiss it, if we want to. Or we can spend time being pulled into the sub-conscious.

This time of year is special to ASI because we hold an annual exhibition of art done by our participants. It is a two-sided goal for us. On one side, we expand our population’s ability to reach out to the community. On the other side is the community that we’re reaching out to. We hope that your community joins us in October and November to support our population, help us celebrate The Art of Seeing, and The Art of Autism. 

We didn’t write that headline. “Guys in Ties and Ties on Guys” belongs to Stacey. In her own words, it’s one of the things that is guaranteed to grab her eye. So much so that she’s composed a portrait series of famous “guys in ties.” Her recent appearance of Fred Flintstone was an unexpected but clever addition to her series. Until now, we never really noticed that Fred sported a blue tie. Another example of how art invites us to see what they see.  Look for Stacey at our two approaching Arts Work exhibitions. And if you’re a guy... be sure to have on a tie.

There’s a term used in the arts community for work that is created by those who lack a formal training in art technique; the term is “outsider art.” The term itself was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal, and was meant to describe what he viewed as “rough art.” Today the term has been re-defined for artists who were never formally recognized or had their creativity informed by academic conventions. In a way, these “outsider artists” exemplify art in its purest form. It is the imagination in its purest form.

I hesitate to refer to the work by our population as “outsider art” for what should be obvious reasons. However, the principles of this term wonderfully apply to the art of our individuals: They are true demonstrations of where the mind goes when the imagination is liberated. In western culture, we’ve built a reverent mystique around art and the artist. Some of the artists in our population could care less about having the “artist” moniker attached to their names. They have removed the formality that is often attached to “insider art” and reduced it to its most pure and simplistic compound: Imagination.

In the words of Neil Sanders, artist and ASI participant, “The only thing I can tell you about Autism is that it is a mystery.” The imaginative art of this population, so far, is our most telling clue about this mystery. I invite you to enjoy the artwork, the imagination, and the mystery of this whole experience. I am grateful to these individuals for allowing us to become “insiders.”