This month’s art work is titled “Life on Earth”.

It features two of my faceless people standing in a forest at ‘the edge of the earth’.  Whilst they are grounded in a tangible reality, beneath them is a realm of intangible emotions.  One is tentatively asking the other a question but the other person is unable to answer.  The work is acrylic on paper, 31cm x 41cm.

I hope you enjoy the painting.  It is one I did last week, the rest of which you can see in my online gallery.

Warmly,

Donna Williams *)

http://www.donnawilliams.net

Donna and The Aspinauts have an adult version of the Barbie song, but I’ve reworked the lyrics for a kids version.  Enjoy Read the rest of this entry »

Footsteps of a Nobody is getting a 2nd showing!

Footsteps of a Nobody is a powerful one woman rock-musical from Donna Williams, author of the international bestseller, Nobody Nowhere; Autobiography of an Autistic Girl. Through characterisations, gestural signing, evocative spoken word and song it traces Donna’s pivotal experiences from a meaning deaf, meaning blind feral child to homelessness and life as a domestic prostitute and on to her ultimate fight to claim a place of equality among others.

REVIEWS OF DONNA WILLIAMS’ BOOKS:
THE NEW YORK TIMES: She allows us to understand our own perceptions as never before.
PEOPLE MAGAZINE: By turns fascinating and harrowing…
WEEKEND REVIEW: …evocative, poetic…compelling, shocking, gut-wrenchingly moving…
DAILY TELEGRAPH: Powerful and unique.
THE GLOBE AND MAIL: deserves every superlative a reviewer can muster.

BOOKINGS: 9329 8821

www.spenserslive.com.au
www.aspinauts.com

  In 1985 I wrote a song called Not Just Anything.  In 2009, I rewrote the lyrics to form the song A Room With A View.  Unlike the award winning Merchant Ivory film of the same name (adapted from the 1908 novel by E.M Forster) my song is not a about an Edwardian romance.   In 2007, I had written a filmscript, Mc Reedy’s Christmas (represented by Bicoastal Talent) about a post apocalyptic society and related to climate change in a world where we did nothing to stop it.  The lyrics to A Room With A View were based on Mc Reedy’s world.  Here’s its lyrics: Read the rest of this entry »

  I recorded the song Boulevard of Broken Dreams back in 2005.  It was written 15 years ago in 1990.  In fact, before Green Day put out their version in 2004, there had been 5 other songs with the same title in the years of 1954, 1958, 1957, 1984 and 1989.  In my version, there is mention of Marilyn (Monroe), James Dean and Elvis, referring to the painting by  Gottfried Helnwein also titled Boulevard of Broken Dreams.   My version of the song is basically about our the ‘irrational rationality’ we take for granted in affluent Western societies. Read the rest of this entry »

  For anyone who has been a Baa Baa Black Sheep, you can hear this gothic blues version by Donna Williams and The Aspinauts on our music page. Read the rest of this entry »

THAT’S SO GAY a song by Donna Williams 2009

Read the rest of this entry »

  Michael Jackson was a fascinating human.  But as much as the autistic community wants to claim him as an icon, he was likely only as autistic or not as most members of the human race.  But whether he had Exposure Anxiety, a condition easily confused with (and which commonly co-occurs with autism) is another question, and perhaps he had more of that than most.

As a performer he was fearless, wildly creative, innovative, in his own world and a league of his own.  As a person, he was somewhere between painfully shy and extremely vigilant.  In his interviews he’d fluctuate between almost autistic in his avoidance of direct touch, eye contact and his voice could retreat to a timid whisper.  Then, in the blink of an eye, he could confront before, just as quick, he’d be gone again. Read the rest of this entry »

This month’s art work is titled ‘‘At The Typewriter“.

And it was at the typewriter that I began to find I could express something more than echoed speech.  I was about 9 years old when a typewriter was left in my room for my discovery.  Being a child with extreme Exposure Anxiety, I was reticent about it.  Surely it was an attempt to test me out, to get me to accept it, and clearly it was of ‘their world’, not mine.  Read the rest of this entry »

  Christophe Pillault produces some of the most moving art by people with autism in the world.  Severely autistic, functionally non-verbal and with extremely limited self help skills he produces faceless, figurative works of soulful figures interacting.  The works are full of movement, passion, yet also great grace Read the rest of this entry »