 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 »
If art expresses the cognition, perception, social emotional, communication and personality states of the artist, what are we learning from artists with autism? Are we learning about autism at all through their art, and if so, which facets of their autism? Are we in fact learning more about the diversity of autism through the array of works by people with autism and how does this stir up fiercely defended old and new stereotypes? Read the rest of this entry »
This month’s featured art work is titled “Eleanor“. It’s title comes from the Beatles song Eleanor Rigby which I feel is a song that captures aloneness. I have rarely felt lonely but I experience aloneness all the time. I’m solitary by nature and by choice and I cherish my solitude enormously, often too much Read the rest of this entry »
This month’s featured artwork is titled Blah Blah Blah. It’s a painting about meaning deafness Read the rest of this entry »
This month’s art work is called Coming Out.
Coming Out can mean many things and for me it is an important and valuable concept. This painting helps me celebrate the importance of coming out and the endurance and challenges it takes for any of us to do so. Read the rest of this entry »
 The world of Synesthesia is broader than you think. I see musically. I process the meaning of what I hear through the kinesthetic movement of gestural signing and representational objects. I sometimes have colors and patterns trigger in my brain in response to touch. I talk of green smells, bright tastes, crunchy sounds and fluffy, scratchy and hard edged people.   Here I interview hill’s artist and singer-songwriter, Tracey Roberts, on how her own Synesthesia relates to her ARTism.
Donna Williams
http://www.donnawilliams.net
http://www.myspace.com/donnaandtheaspinauts
This month’s art work is The Gadoodleborger.
In Nobody Nowhere I had thought of the world as having ‘The Worlders’, which were those who were ego driven and geared for appearances and ‘My Worlders’ who were those who valued ‘beingness’, had and valued a world of their own, and for whom image, ego and appearances were only secondary.
Then, in  Somebody Somewhere, in 1994, I first wrote of another category of humans; Gadoodleborgers.  Gadoodleborgers weren’t ‘The Worlders’, nor were they people necessarily on the autism spectrum. But what was special about Gadoodleborgers was that they were natural translators, bridgekeepers able to cross between worlds, diplomats, anthropologists interested in the wonderment of social difference and diversity. I wrote a fable about them best captured in the poem, The Gadoodleborger:
GADOODLEBORGER, copyright, Donna Williams, Aug 2008
He spied her in a magic wood, a sensing creature in need of none
And dreamed of how he’d join her there, his partner she would soon become
He lured her back to the place he knew, a world of hierarchy and of power
And there she then began to die, as surely as a wilting flower
His heart began to break inside, he knew only one thing to give
Return her to her sensing world, that she might find the will to live
And there as she began to bloom, she saw something he’d never seen
That he was not of that world either, a Gadoodleborger, he had been.
That he walked between two worlds, he now had finally understood
And so they made their home in neither world, at the edges of the magic wood.
So for me, The Gadoodleborger is a source of faith in humanity, a reason to shun opportunities for reverse prejudice against non-spectrum people, a reason to believe that neurodiversity exists amidst human beings in general and in not reserved for those with diagnostic labels. I have found Gadoodleborgers in the non-spectrum and autism spectrum populations and many many people in those populations are not Gadoodleborgonian, but I think I just may be rather Gadoodleborgonian and so I share this something with all other Gadoodleborgers throughout human kind, a something which defines me beyond being ‘an autistic’ and something which connects me to personhood more than labels.
The painting, The Gadoodleborger, was painted in Woolongong in 2002, the year my Gadoodleborgonian husband, Chris Samuel (who features in the book Everyday Heaven ), migrated to Australia from his UK homeland, allowing this homesick Aussie to return to live in Australia after almost 13 years away.  In this sense, it is our marriage, that of an autie with an Aspergerian Gadoodleborger, which is captured in this painting, something of the essence of Chris’ inquisitive interpretive mind and world of meaning, and mine as a place of sensing in the reality of someone partially meaning deaf, meaning blind and face blind.
The butterflies in the painting were originally rosella parrots, indicative of the return to Australia. But they were turned into butterflies a few years later, symbols of change, transition, adaptation, perhaps just as I was changing, transitioning, adapting from a world of autism into a world of ARTism.
The painting was done in acrylics on stretched canvas and the grass is full of rainbows. The colors capture the summer of Australia, and yet the lush dark green foliage across the water is perhaps the characters memories of the climate of the UK.
I hope you like the painting and feel free to visit my many other paintings in my online gallery at my website.
Warmly,
Donna Williams,
author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
http://www.donnawilliams.net
Hi folks, if any of you already went to this show you’ll have found the show wasn’t up yet (courier problem). The show’s opening is now this week, Wed Jan 14th and it runs the full three weeks to Feb 4th. Hope to hear from any of you who made it to the show.
A Place of Belonging: a solo exhibition of artworks by Donna Williams
Jan 14th – Feb 4th 2009
Venue: Grenfell Gallery, 25 Grenfell St, Adelaide
Hours: Mon-Fri 9am – 6pm daily
More information:Â www.peakevents.com.au/galleryÂ
 Each month I send out a challenge for people to send me a 1-2 word topic they’d like me to write a poem to and I must write all the poems in the challenge within 48 hours. People CAN’T send names (yes, everyone wants one named after their child 
) but they can send other 1-2 word titles. Each sender only gets me writing one poem per poetry challenge and the more surreal the challenge, the better. Read the rest of this entry »
Donna Williams is an Australian born adult with autism who was assessed as psychotic at the age of 2 in 1965, labelled disturbed in the 1970s and diagnosed as autistic in her 20s in 1991.
She acquired functional speech in late childhood and went on to become a qualified teacher with an honors degree in Sociology and a degree in Linguistics. She is the author of two international bestselling autobiographies and has 10 published books including 4 text books widely used in autism education and two books of poetry and prose.
As a screenwriter, she wrote the screenplay to “Nobody Nowhere”, the first book in her 4 book autobiographical series. That screenplay is currently under option to become a Hollywood film. She is an professional artist, singer-songwriter and published poet as well as a world renowned public speaker on autism now living with her husband in Australia. In her presentations she draws not only on her own experiences but on international experience as a professional autism consultant since 1996.
Donna’s is a speaker in demand around the world due to her unique perspective and ability to share her feelings and experiences on a very personal level. More information about her and her life’s work can be found on her website at http://www.donnawilliams.net .