Donna Williams’ Blog

  Jennifer Roussin is on the autism spectrum and runs her own business, Chameleon Arts which is one of the businesses listed on http://www.auties.org .  She is a mother, an artist and a lover of nature.  Here we discuss our different sensory worlds and their relationships to our lives as artists on the autism spectrum. 

DONNA:
Jennifer, your artworks show a real love of nature.
I’m interested in perception and how people on the
autism spectrum experience their senses.  What better
way to find out than to ask a range of artists on the
autism spectrum.
So tell me about your own sensory perception.
How do you see, hear, experience touch, movement,
smells and tastes?

JENNIFER:
Vision:  I have an extremely sharp visual memory.
Most all of my memories are like color photos.   I
also have a tendency to notice small details that
others miss.  You can probably see my attention to
detail in my art, especially in my earlier works.
Many of my dreams are extremely visually vivid.
Although not all of them are that way.  Some dreams
are composed more of emotion than of visual images.

DONNA:

I have a great SERIAL MEMORY for things I’ve seen but I can’t envision anything I haven’t yet seen.  So I think in movement, much like a blind person, even though I can remember visually. This has always confused people who think I can learn from seeing, because in fact I have to learn from doing.  Interestingly, in real-time processing, I process visual things still rather bit by bit, losing most of the processing of visual context, so I’m fairly meaning blind.  But in serial memory, it’s all there.

JENNIFER:

Hearing: I also have quite sharp hearing.  I’ve always
been extra sensitive to noises.  I couldn’t tolerate
parties as a kid, my mom said I went off in the corner
and cried.  I couldn’t tolerate firewords either (a
big thing in the USA) Sometimes, I have to leave
church when the the music is wrong, and it hurts my
ears.  I’m very easily overloaded with regards to
sounds.  The quieter, the better for me.  I do love
good music, though.  When I get tired, I have a very
hard time tolerating the sounds of human speech; it is
my personal belief that there is way too much talking
that goes on between people, and most of it is wasted
energy.

DONNA:

Verbal blah and written blah fry me because of a language processing disorder.  When it fries my circuitry the sound sounds louder, the words and word order sound tumbled and it all sounds faster.  Also the more background noise, the harder it is to process speech.  But I’ve come a long way.  At best I process around 70% of the speech I hear.  That often slips back to 50% and when I’ve been involved for some time or there’s more speakers or overhead lights, lots of movement and emotional stuff it can slip back to 30%.  When it hits 10% I’ve usually become scared and left the room.  I love when people use gestural signing to augment the processing of their words and I love when people speak more slowly and ECONOMICALLY in bullet points.  Oh, but 99% of people don’t or won’t or can’t be bothered.

JENNIFER:

Touch: I cannot stand rough fabric such as most wool,
burlap, or polyester.  My favorite clothing is made of
cotton, it is so soft and unobtrusive.  I absolutely
love soft fluffy things, like a fluffy furball of a
cat, or my little boy’s soft head.  (my youngest if 5,
my other son is 13)  I’d have a cat, except my older
son is severely allergic.

DONNA:

I find wool scratchy but the way I grew up I learned to accept a hell of a lot.  There was no such thing as whining if you valued your safety.  I had a thing though where I couldn’t stand wool to touch other wool.  It just fried me.  And I won’t put fabrics near my mouth.

JENNIFER:

I can’t stand people to touch me unless I trust them
and feel really comfortable with them.  This includes
my husband and 2 boys.  I don’t mind a handshake
though, but I hate it when other people besides my
immediate family try to hug me.  My mother in law used
to always hug me, and I hated it.  My husband asked
her to stop, and she did, luckily.

DONNA:

I can very much relate.  I can now tolerate being hugged by those I know well but I only enjoy it from Chris and mostly I have to initiate.  I can shake hands but by the third person I feel feral and more like I want to slap than shake hands.  It just fries my nervous system.  Visually I can’t process the movements toward me and kinesthetically it is unfamiliar and overloading.

JENNIFER:

Smells:  I absolutely love the smell of natural
things, like essential oils, fresh cut grass, the
smell of walking in the woods, etc.  But I hate strong
fragrances such as are found in deodorants, laundry
detergents, etc.  They seem very harsh and offensive
to me.  I hate perfume, and can’t wear it, or I get
migraines, but I can wear some lavender oil, or other
soft and natural oils or floral waters.

DONNA:

Yes, MANY auties get sick from perfume.  No wonder, its usually made from petrochemicals and contains pthylates that supress immune function some of which have been linked to higher breast cancer rates.  I like rose water and I like natural smells in plants.  But I’m salicylate and phenol intolerant so have to avoid some plants and chemicals.

JENNIFER:

Tastes:  I love foods that are zesty and highly
flavored, but I don’t like hot spicy foods.  I hate
bland foods that have no taste.

DONNA:

Oh, I’m the opposite.  I love bland foods, the blander the better.  A celery stick, a rice cracker.  I had a thing for sweets until I got type 2 diabetes and became a walking bunch of Candida, so I’m largely sugar free now.

DONNA:
I’m also a prolific artist across a range of mediums -
painting, sculpture, music, writing - and sometimes I
look back and feel I had ARTism which had once looked
so ‘autistic’ or that I’ve moved along a spectrum from
autism into artism.
How about you?
Did you always show artistic ability or were you more
feral and ART emerged progressively out of ARTism?

JENNIFER:

I definitely feel that my ARTism and my autism are
intertwined together very much.  I believe that I
experience my world in a more sensory manner than in
an abstract manner, although I can get pretty verbose
myself, sometimes.  I think I have a streak of that
feral nature, because I’ve always felt more connected
to the outdoors, plants, trees, the grass, streams,
lakes, rivers, animals and the sky.  I feel more at
home and more in my element when I’m in a natural
setting.  I love the quietness of nature.  I spent
most of my childhood (when I wasn’t in school)
outdoors exploring nature; not in a scientific way,
but just being outside, soaking it all in, and being a
part of it all.

DONNA:
Yes, artists have a strong relationship to nature and tend to become one with aesthetic surroundings.

Your work is quite nostalgic.  Are you a romanticist?

JENNIFER
I probably am.  I’m a very sentimental person, and
very emotional, even though I don’t show it much, at
least not directly.  I can recall several moments in
my past, when I was just standing still, when I felt
as though I was emotionally transported to a different
world, a world of blissfulness apart from this chaotic
and often violent world in which we live.

DONNA:
Interestingly, I love beautiful films but the screenplays I write are combinations of beauty, grit and darkness.  I’d say I’m a realist as well as a nostalgic, a romanticist.

There’s an ‘Englishness’ to your work.  How does this
relate to your own culture?

JENNIFER:
If so, that was not intentional.  About 75% of my
ancestors were English, Scottish, and Irish, so
perhaps that has unconsciously influenced my work.
(I’m actually an American and live in the USA)

DONNA:
Your work is very professional, and rather ’slice of
life’ with a strong emphasis on nature.

JENNIFER:
Yes, I was trained under an impressionist artist named
Jerry Thomas.  Part of the impressionist movement is
that you are capturing a moment in time.  I believe
that he has influenced me in that way, as well as in
many other ways.  Jerry is very precise, (as am I) and
has taught me how to paint using many techniques,
which probably accounts for the professional look in
my work.  He is an absolutely fantastic artist and
teacher.  He is profoundly passionate about art.

DONNA:
Do you feel you are an artist who happens to be on the
autism spectrum or that there is something
particularly autistic about your art works?

JENNIFER
I believe both, probably, but more the first.  I do
know that my work is exquisitely detailed.  In my
earlier work, every tiny thing was drawn/painted in
all its detail, and often all the small parts were
done in isolation from one another.  My mentor and
teacher Jerry Thomas had to give me quite a few talks
and much training to help me get my paintings to be
one adherent whole, and unified.

DONNA:
Artists tend to be quite solitary by nature, we like
to relate through the things we create or ‘be’ in ‘the
world’ through our creative processes.
Do you fit this picture of the artist?

JENNIFER:
I believe that is probably true. I have a hard time
communicating verbally the deeper things in life, and
I believe that I’ve been gifted with this alternative
channel of communication and self-expression.

DONNA:
I have to say I’m described by a friend as being
plagued by ‘existential angst’ and I think this
‘tortured soul’ thing comes through in my artwork.
But yours feels so ‘pleasant’.  Does this reflect your
inner reality, your place in the world?
Or is it more chaotic than that?

JENNIFER:
My inner world is definitely more chaotic than is
shown in my artwork.  Although, I do have a couple of
recent pieces that are described by other artists as
“moody”.  I just haven’t gotten them on my website
yet.  I think some of my later artwork is slightly
more expressionistic and somewhat less “technique”
oriented.  I hope to someday be more self expressive
in at least some of my art work.

Whenever I paint, I feel relaxed and joyful, and I
think this comes through.

DONNA:
I do hope to see some of your grittier work too.

We are largely very different sorts of artists.
Have you seen the work of many artists on the autism
spectrum?
Do your feelings about their work differ from that of
artists in general?
Do you feel some of us work from out eyes, others from
our minds, or our gut?
Where do you feel you work from?

JENNIFER:
I’ve seen your work, and that of Jessica Park. I
haven’t seen much other autistic art.  I didn’t get
dx’ed as AC (Asperger/autism) until I was 38 or 39
years old, and by then I was married with a child.  I
can’t say I’ve seen enough autistic art to have a
definite opinion on whether I feel different about
autistic versus nonautistic art.

Yes, I’d say different artists work from different
reference points.  I definitely work from my eyes
mostly.  However, I think a little expressionism is
starting to creep into some of my work, so I’d say
that  my inner world/emotions are starting to come out
in my work a little.  I once was trying to paint a
scene that had a row of trees, and it had a very shady
feel.  I was trying to approach it very analytically,
and it was driving me crazy!  All those leaves, all
the lights and darks; it was quite overwhelming.  I
finally just jumped into it angrily, and ended up with
trees that had highly chromatic magenta undulating
tree trunks.

DONNA:
Artists are great at hiding, they love to disappear
into or live through their art.
But who is Jennifer?
Tell me about you?

JENNIFER:

I’m a very intense and emotional person, but it seldom
shows, except if you catch me on a particularly good
or bad day.  I can be quite turbulent and moody.
Since I tend to hold my feelings in, I am prone to
depression, especially in winter.  I’m really quite
impatient, but I’m also a very generous,
compassionate, and giving person.  I often get quite
dismayed at what I see as people rushing around on a
hamster wheel going nowhere, spending most of their
time and energy trying to make more money, get a
bigger house, a bigger car, etc. I find this really
disturbing in the fact that much of nature and the
environment is being destroyed in the process.

I live in the city in a modest size home, and young families
move in here for a couple years, then move out to a
neighborhood just to get into a bigger house.  What
for?  They are never at home anyway, just out rushing
around like crazy all the time.

I’m idealistic and have high standards, so I oftentimes feel jaded by
what the world around me has become.  I’m rather
impulsive and spontaneous, and there are times I just
like to cut loose and have fun.  I also very
independent and don’t give a hoot about earning the
approval of others.  I tend to distance people who try
to make too many demands on me.  There are a lot of
folks in my family, and my husband’s family, who think
I should be more like June Cleaver on “Leave it to
Beaver”, and be the ever domestic dutiful wife and
mother, but I tell them in so many words to bite me.
That’s just not me.

DONNA:
The image of the ’struggling artist’ is a stereotype.
Do you fit it?
What would you like from your art and the art world?

JENNIFER:

I believe the art world, at least the part of it that
I’ve been exposed to, is highly political.  At this
point in time, abstract art is very “in” in my region,
and my art is definitely not abstract.  However, I
need to paint from my heart, I cannot paint just what
others want, or paint just to sell.  If I’m going to
do that, I may as well just go back to being a
computer programmer like I was years ago.

I see my work as an extension of myself.  I think there is a
part of myself in there.  I get highly annoyed when
people ask, “what does that cost, and how long did it
take you to paint that?”  I hope that people can see
the spiritual quality in the work first and foremost.
I feel really wonderful when someones does recognize
the spiritual aspect, and I can tell that it has made
a difference to that person, and my art has spoken to
them somehow.

DONNA:
Yes, you are right.  To bring art forth from one’s soul is a whole other world to paint-by-numbers.

And to me art is about connecting to souls but I also appreciate art can give a ‘heart’ to a house, bring a theme and feel to it, turn a house into a home.  It can also be a place of communion, something of an altar, a meditation space one communes with.

Jennifer, if people would like to explore your art
further, where can they find it?

JENNIFER:
They can view my work at:
www.chameleon-arts.net.  If they have questions or
comments, they can email me from the contact page.

DONNA:
Thanks for the interview.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?

JENNIFER:
Donna, I thank you for your interest.  I really
appreciate that you took the time to look closely at
my work, and to come up with probing and thoughful
questions.  I’ve read all three of your first
autobiographical books, so I feel like I already know
you.  I hope we can keep in touch.

Jennifer
http://www.chameleon-arts.net

DONNA:
Thanks for the invitation and glad you liked the questions.  I’m assuming you’ve read Nobody Nowhere, Somebody Somewhere and Like Colour To The Blind.  If you ever want to interview me on any of those first the autiebiogs, let me know.  I’ll gladly take 10 questions about each.  You do know the fourth book was Everyday Heaven?

All the best,

Warmly,

Donna Williams
author, artist, composer, screenwriter
http://www.donnawilliams.net