#artofautism

I started looking around online and saw that this is a thing that has happened to other people. I’m not sharing this to scare anyone -

THE CRUNCHER

TRIGGER WARNING: descriptives of medical problems

The facility who did my test follows the “Planetree” philosophy, which means: mindful of a person’s mind, body and spirit. As you’re waiting for your name to be called, there are ‘soothing’ colors, comfortable furnishings, free coffee bar and a water feature. There are snacks in a basket for the taking and free water bottles. The…

But enough doctor humor. Here is what I have been doing besides being on/off sick: collage and more collage.

I found the materials for this piece in many different sources. I dug into my puzzle collection for her hair. This artwork was finished relatively quickly. It only took about 8 hours and then I declared it done. But then I saw the red/white/blue puzzle piece on the top of her head and thought, ‘I’m going to have to fix that…It looks out of place, chaotic. It stands out as being off kilter; lacking something.’ But then I decided to leave the red/white/blue piece right where it is. This is why: red/white/blue symbolizes the U.S., right? And right now our political climate IS out of place, chaotic, off balance, off kilter, lacking something. The piece is staying right where it is. Maybe it was a subconscious placement. This lady’s eye is from a print of Frieda Kahlo, her mouth is from a book on Native American art, her skin is out of an AVON book. She holds one of those deli tickets that reads: Your turn is A91.

Here is something else I’ve made; that has so far taken 5 times as many hours as the puzzle head lady and I also painted some of it with acrylic paint. It is inspired by the “ME TOO” stuff going on right now. I had trouble with this one in saying what I wanted to say… The faces around the edges (except for Trump, top-left) are for the most part, from a Walter Foster vintage sketch book. You will see that Walter Foster  (who died in 1981) signed much of his work as: WTF. Isn’t that the coolest thing? I thought it was fitting to include that in this artwork.

The face of the shattered woman is painted a little with acrylic and is designed from the WTF sketches (her eyes, her mouth) and her skin is from a doll collecting book. The tree limbs are from a coloring book marketed for adults; which were of course black and white so I painted them. The cutting for this piece took a lot of time and precision as you can well imagine. I used about 8 different trees and after cutting out the limbs, formed them in this arrangement.

MORE DETAILS

I’m putting this aside for a while so I can look it with fresh eyes in a few weeks!

I have been doing things other than collage too. I recorded a podcast with Spectrumly Speaking; which should be posted in a week or so as of this writing. I was worried about the way my voice cracked, worried I sounded unnatural, worried about sounding nervous, because I was, which I figured would in turn make my interviewer and also the listening audience, nervous as well. I expressed my worries to Carl Sutton, co-author of a book I had some writing in; called Selective Mutism In Our Own Words: Experiences in Childhood and Adulthood. I told him I did not think I’d be able to listen to the podcast (and my voice) when it aired. This is how Carl responded (italics are mine):

… I think that your finding it difficult does nothing but add weight to your / the recordings legitimacy and authenticity. If you had found it easy and everything had gone to plan you would feel better about it, but I would think talking about struggling to talk is made more powerful by struggling to talk. Yes, for us, we can talk without difficulty in some situations but doing something like you had the courage to do isn’t one of those..!

So well done you!! I will listen to it, even if you can’t 🙂

Like me, Carl HAS struggled with selective mutism too. It’s always nice to have other perspectives. Anxiety appears to be at the core of Selective Mutism. Recently I saw an article on LinkedIn about “anxiety cells.” The article was about stigma and anxiety and the etiology of it in the brain. I find it hard copying links from LinkedIn so I have not included that here. As a comment on that article, I posted this on LinkedIn:

If brain imaging existed for these hippocampus anxiety cells, my scan would be absolutely gorgeous with them!

Said Harold “Hackie” Reitman, M.D.  in response to this comment: ” Kimberly gerry-tucker You write poetically as you deliver your message! Keep up your good work.”

NOTE: I commented in this way, because being a visual thinker, I imagined a scan of my brain looking for anxiety cells in particular; lit up in colors like sparks, like fireworks and tendrils and I thought, how uninteresting my brain/anxiety/scan would look if there were NO anxiety cells, which in my case would definitely not be the scenario!

I have a few thoughts about “the football game” (Superbowl) which happened recently. Firstly this, a recent Jeopardy aired with an entire category on football. You could’ve heard crickets, as the saying goes, because the contestants could not answer the football questions. “MY PEOPLE!” I thought… Interesting how so many people found it odd that some people have no interest in sports. Just like some people have no interest in cars, or trains or art. I mentioned online recently that non-sports folks should throw parties too, on “Superbowl Sunday.” If I were to do this (and I probably wouldn’t, because I would have more fun in the planning than the attending of said party), I would research what the colors were for the Superbowl teams playing, then I would look up the opposite colors on the color wheel and these colors would be the theme for the SuperNon-SportsSunday party!

Since the theme of this raven ambition blog has always been randomness, here is a random observation I had recently: On an almost daily basis, I get a friend request from a man posed in a bleak concrete landscape, gold watch usually prominently on display, wearing a come-hither misogynistic expression & with a name like Christian Honesty…..my BLOCK list grows!!!!

I will leave you with one more collage I finished last month, entitled Po and Me. Po is my 17 year old cat and it is hard to believe that we have been through so much together. He is truly the sweetest cat I have ever had.

I recently introduced a new member to the family- a very fluffy kitten born on 11-11. Her name is Georgie and she has integrated well.

That’s all for now! I will close with a CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS. Please email me at [email protected] and I will interview you (just a few short questions), so we can add you to our Art of Autism: People Of Diversity, Speaking page, with a link to promote your art or interests.

The ART of AUTISM is a collaborative project that connects artists and performers of all ages on the autism spectrum with opportunities and venues to showcase their varied talents. We are committed to promoting artists and educating the general public. We help artists through mentorships, building  resumes, portfolios, and direct work experience in the arts.…