A few months ago I was asked to participate in an art auction which would raise funds as part of Artists For Autism.  I decided to interview the organiser, Charlene Croft, Co-Chair Artists for Autism Fundraising Committee
about their 1st Annual Artists for Autism Auction and Fundraising Gala

DONNA WILLIAMS:
Hi Charlene, tell us a bit about you?

CHARLENE
Hi Donna, thanks for having me.

I guess the first thing to introduce is the fact that I have two sons who are in
the autistic realm of the spectrum, and a husband who self-identifies as being
more on the aspie side of things.

I live in Halifax, which is the smallest big city in Canada.  It’s located on
the East Coast in the province of Nova Scotia.  It is a truly amazing city…
for being so small it is jam packed with culture and creativity.

Halifax is a University town, and for the past 4 years, I have worked at two of
the major universities here.  First, in sociology/anthropology at Mount Saint
Vincent, and now in the Department of Bioethics in the Faculty of Medicine at
Dalhousie University for Dr. Blye Frank.

I have worked on a variety of research projects, ranging from Web 2.0 (or online
social networking) to crime in Halifax (The Mayor’s Roundtable on Violence) and
now, I’ve found a niche within the autism advocacy community here.

DONNA WILLIAMS:
Want to tell us how we came to meet each other over the ether?

CHARLENE:
Well, we met because one day, after I had posted a photoblog of my youngest
son’s block art… you left a very generous comment on it, providing me with a
little bit more insight into what I thought I was seeing in what he was doing.
I have to say, I was completely ecstatic that the post compelled you to
comment… you are sort of like a celebrity in my mind I had read Nobody
Nowhere back when my older son was diagnosed, then Somebody Somewhere with my
second.

DONNA WILLIAMS:

Ah, so you have read books 1 & 2 of the 4 book autiebiographical series

CHARLENE:

I had also heard you give an interview on CBC radio some years ago…
so for me, getting that comment was a real honour.

Then, when I came up with the idea for the fundraiser, I thought, “What the
heck, I’ll email Donna Williams and try and get a piece from her to auction.”
As I said, I have always been a huge fan of your work, and thought it would be
fabulous to have one of your pieces to include.

DONNA WILLIAMS:
Yes, and then my work went flying over to you via the postal service.

What got you interested in Autism Arts or ARTism?

CHARLENE:
I am completely fascinated with the perspectives of those on the spectrum.  In
many ways, I think that those who experience life through this lens are
actually more “human” than those of us who have been influenced by and defined
our identities around the social constructions of culture and institutional
society our entire lives.

DONNA WILLIAMS:

I think some of this comes down to the overflowing bucket model… that when information processing capacity is like an overflowing bucket, it’s hard to keep up with processing even the basics for interpretive meaning.  So one can process self but lose other or process other but lose self quite continuously so it’s easy to completely miss all that stuff about how others perceive you etc or why you should care.  There’s also Social Emotional Agnosia for many, in which the ability to read facial expression, body language or intonation is missing or poorly connected so the means by which people buy into usual culture and defined social identities, is sometimes just not there. In my case I’m also face blind and relatively object blind, context blind and meaning deaf, and all of those things come through in my different works of art.  In that sense, for me, it’s a dialogue with the world, a means of expressing a different sensory, perceptual, cognitive, communication, and social-emotional reality.

CHARLENE:

To me, artistic and creative expression are the most important processes we can
experience as thinking, feeling, perceptual beings.  It is the way that we
externalize our experiences with the world, and share those experiences with
anyone who might be interested.  Art, both creating it and taking it in, is
extremely therapeutic for me.  There is nothing I enjoy more than taking
photographs, or painting, or reading a book that actually speaks to me, or
being at a live music event, or shaking my booty to a rhythm that compels me to
move…

In my mind, ARTism is as pure as creative expression can get.  It provides
little snapshots into some of the most intense perspectives on this planet.
Perspectives that are based solely on the individual’s experiences being in the
world.  Lots of the visual art out there today seems to be based on what might
be commercially appealing, or simply recreations of things that have been done
before… you never get that with ARTism.  It is genuine.

And while the ARTism like Stephen Wiltshire’s (the stuff that is based in
reality) is amazingly precise and impressive… I actually prefer the more
“abstract” ARTism.  And I put little air quoties around abstract because
sometimes I wonder if it is abstract at all… perhaps the abstract ARTism is
actually as precise as the realism, only it is a precise representation of an
emotional state rather than something we can identify, like a building.

DONNA WILLIAMS:
Yes, ARTism as the art of those with autism, does differ depending on the autism fruit salad of the artist in question.  In Stephen’s Wiltshire’s case, his interest in structure and perfect replication speaks also of a highly conscientious, details oriented personality trait, bent on complete control of the subject matter and achievement driven necessity to have perfection.   Plus it’s quite solitary because he focuses on objects, places ,yet these places have personality and character for him, it’s as though they are characters in their own right.

The work of sculptor Alonzo Clemons emphasises replication too but is really about movement… the kinesthetic world, where Stephens is more the logic mind, that of a mathematical thinker, the systematician.

I’ve seen some wonderful abstract artists whose work resembles the sensibilities of Rothko ,where the emphasis is on the pure juxtoposition of expressive color contrasts and shifts.  And I’ve seen work by others which emphasised the experience but has no emphasis on facial expression.  Then I’ve see Jonathan Lerman’s portraits which entirely consist of catching the musical of beingness of different faces, perhaps not through facial expression but the uniqueness of each person as expressed through how they sit in their faces.

Mine is almost the opposite of Stephen’s.  Being context blind I barely use context.  Like Alonzo, I am extremely drawn to the kinesthetic so movement really comes through in my work, and is sometimes really fluid, move than you would find in real people, it’s more like I’m capturing souls than anything seen.  Most of my characters are faceless, perhaps reflecting my face blindness.  But there’s a musicality to my work because I see musically.

So for me, I love the diversity of works by people on the spectrum and the different fruit salads and interesting personalities these express.

You have a fundraiser during Canadian Autism Awareness Month for
an Autism Summer Camp program put on by the Autism Society there in
Canada.  Tell us about it?  What will people get out of coming along?

CHARLENE:

Well, the Artists for Autism fundraiser is something I’ve wanted to do for a
while, and this year it is actually going to happen.

Autism Society Nova Scotia puts on a summer camp program for kids between the
ages of 5 and 19 on the spectrum.  My oldest finished his fourth successful
camp this summer, and my youngest had his first full experience with it.  It is
a very important recreation program here.

There are very few arts and recreation-based programs for children on the
spectrum here in Halifax… and summers can be particularly difficult for
parents, trying to find stuff for their kids to do.  The summer camp is
therapeutic, but not program based… it is meant to be fun!  Not modeled after
any curriculum or behavioural therapy based programs.

But, the way funding goes these days, the autism programs that get the lion’s
share of public funding are either a) for children under the age of 5 or b)
fall under the administration of the medical community (actually in most cases
they are both)… This camp has been mostly run by generous private funding in
recent years.

This year, only 45 children got to go to the camp.  There is a waiting list
which is almost certain to grow as fast as prevalence rates.  So we’re calling
it the “1st Annual” because we hope we can start something lasting and help
Autism Society Nova Scotia refine, and hopefully expand the camp.

My co-worker, Tara Kinch, really pushed me to develop this into an actual thing.
We formed a committee and got people involved, and now… well here we are.

In terms of what I hope people take from it (I mean aside from the art that they
are going to purchase!) is the idea that there are actually some redeeming
qualities about autism… it is not, necessarily, a debilitating disease.  I
want to start Autism Awareness month with a celebration of autism and the
arts… Because really, if we start to change our societal perceptions of
autism, then I think people with autism can get a little closer to finding a
life of their own… within society… and not on the fringes as stigmatized
oddball rain men, if you know what I mean…

DONNA WILLIAMS:
Wow, the events sound fab.  Don’t know if my Exposure Anxiety as a child would have allowed me to participate even if I’d desperately have wanted to but I do feel many arty auties would benefit from such programs.

Tell us about autism in Canada.  What are the biggest issues right
now?  What are the real positives?

CHARLENE:
The biggest issues around autism in Canada revolves around funding.  I recently
crunched the numbers from the latest (2006) Canadian census data.  1 in 166
people in Canada are identified and diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum,
but only 28% of them are between the ages of 4 and 14.  A whopping 72% are 15
or over, yet, all of the funding is being poured into services for children
under 5… a sub-population that they don’t even have accurate data on!

Now, I understand this is because of early intervention initiatives, but there
is something really wrong with a system that pours millions of dollars into
programming and assisting children under 5, but that completely washes its
hands of them once they hit the public school system.  From a policy
perspective, they need to keep what they have at a stable level and start
thinking about inter-departmental, long-term programs.

The positives are that, in general, the Autism communities across Canada are
noticeably emerging and researchers are starting to grab onto the notion of
“neurodiversity”. Michelle Dawson’s work has assisted with this, in bringing
the issue of constitutional rights and autism culture into the Canadian
political arena and common discourse on the topic.

DONNA WILLIAMS:
Yes, I’ve seen that in the UK and Australia too.  In Melbourne, adults have begun starting their own networking and clubs and www.auties.org is a nice example of what some are doing which others around the world can certainly join.

You have one of my original works in your Art Auction, a piece called
‘Rescue’.  What drew you to it and are their other art works or performances in
your program?

CHARLENE:
Choosing your piece was extremely hard.  We had narrowed it down to Rescue and
The Therapist.  In the end, I actually had to get my husband to make the final
selection because I kept flip-flopping.

To me, as a parent and an advocate, it was the helper figure that I was drawn to
the most.  I identified with the urge to reach out and assist in whatever way
that I could… but at the same time not wanting to be too invasive, so
hesitating in case assistance was not desired… because even I have those days
that I am feeling withdrawn, and don’t really desire to be helped by anyone…
I just need to work through what is troubling me on my own.

The colours and patterns in the sky also drew me into the piece… and the
texture is delicious…

DONNA WILLIAMS:

In the picture you may notice that the rescuee is sitting on a golden rock beneath a moon.

The moon represents the world of preconsciousness, one’s own world, and the golden rock represents that this realm, this place is valued and important to this person.  The Rescuee is seeking to help him off his golden rock and toward a tree, which is symbolic of development and learning, but clearly the rescuee is not convinced yet.  I think this should remind us that ‘normality’ is relative and that their may be clashing normalities.  I think it should remind us that however convinced we are that development and learning must progress that the means by which we bring someone out of a preconscious state and the containment of their own world and into the world of learning and development, that we do so respectfully.  We must acknowledge that just as a non-autistic person may mourn an autistic person’s avoidance of learning or development, that equally the autistic person may mourn the loss of that preconscious state, that containment.  Whilst their is much about my autism that was overwhelming and incredibly hard – gut, immune, metabolic disorders, severe mood, anxiety and compulsive disorders, pretty disabling levels of meaning deafness and meaning blindness, there were also great beauties and gifts which many of these challenges gave me or taught me by default, or adaptations which were hard won and valued.  And for me the painting, ‘Rescue’ captures those things.

What other works do you have in the collection?

CHARLENE:

We have quite a beautiful collection of pieces to be auctioned, including 4
watercolours by Paul Miller, an artist with autism from Ontario, and a piece
called “Hyperlexia” by a very talented photographer named Steve Hayes.
Hyperlexia is a collage of letters that were found in natural states.  We also
have a piece from AD Hunt called Male White Artist IV, and one from Montreal
artist Rob Harris called “View” which was inspired, in part, by one of my
oldest son’s stims… something we call “fluffing” (pulling lint and watching
it float through the air).

DONNA WILLIAMS:

Oooo, I can relate… I was quite a shredder and loved making ‘sculptures‘ out of tiny bits of fluff.

Today, of course, I’ve overcome enough of my Exposure Anxiety to be able to dare express sculpture more obviously, through clay and other media.

CHARLENE:

The night will be hosted by Olga Milosevich, a radio personality with the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).  The performers we have are mostly
friends that I have worked with on other projects.  Benn Ross, whose older
brother is on the spectrum, is a veteran drummer here in Halifax and a pretty
good friend.  A little while ago, I asked him if he would be interested in
writing a song inspired by what he thought autism felt like… So he did, and
he will be performing it publically for the first time on the night of the
fundraiser.  (I want to add here that Benn is also a very huge fan of yours…)
Benn will also be playing with his band Heavy Meadows.

Also playing is a phenomenal duo called Thugs at Bay… or t@b.  I can’t even
compare their musical style to anything I’ve heard before, because they are so
unique and wonderful.

DONNA WILLIAMS:

Ooo, wonderful, yes we are having the first autism friendly bands cropping up now.  I’m the lead singer in one called Donna and The Aspinauts.  We’re hoping to be ready to take bookings in 2009.  Wild!

CHARLENE:

Also performing will be Vanessa Furlong, The Missing City Starlight and the
TestosterTONES, a choral of students from the Dalhousie Medical Humanities
program.

Our website http://artistsforautism.ca showcases all of the talent which will be
showcased through the night.

The event will be:

Friday, October 3, 2008 8:00 – 10:30
Alderney Landing Theatre, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada

http://artistsforautism.ca

DONNA WILLIAMS:
Wild.  Wish I could be there in person but at least my painting will greet people.

I hope people can make it and look forward to hearing how it all went.

Thanks for the interview.
I wish you well with your event.

CHARLENE:
Thank you Donna, it has been my pleasure.

Know that I am an advocate of ARTism, and hope we can work together again on
future projects.
–
Charlene Croft
Administrative Secretary
Department of Bioethics
Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University
C-315, Clinical Research Centre
5849 University Ave.
Halifax, NS B3H 4H7

email: charlenecroft@dal.ca
tel: 902.494.5145  Fax: 902.494.3865

DONNA WILLIAMS:

Fab, I’ll remember that.

Warmly,
Donna Williams *)
author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter
http://www.donnawilliams.net