I first used the word ARTism in 2000 to describe how my artistic personality trait had taken over where my autism left off, hence, artism. In 2004 I gave a presentation on ARTism in Those With Autism at Flinders University. The first web references of the use of the word artism go back to 1969. Today the term artism is used by both artists with autism, and many without. And why not? Artism is to artists what chocoholism is to chocoholics.

The ARTism store
Once upon a time there were Donna Williams‘ T-shirts which people bought around with world and mostly in the UK where I was touring when I lived there. Well, they’re back. Not exactly the ones available back then but well worth a visit to the new online shop, if only for a look around. And if t-shirts don’t interest you, there’s plenty else; mugs, mouse mats, bags, and other stuff. Its ARTism city. Hope to see you there.

at http://www.cafepress.com/donnawilliams/

Hope to see you there.

Even better, consider the service this place offers artists and how you might utilise it to express your own creativity.

Every the arty autie….

Donna Williams *)
http://www.donnawilliams.net

Bestselling fantasy fiction author, Caiseal Mor, was diagnosed with ASD as a child. He’d written his autobiography in adulthood but the publishers and the journalists who helped his fiction works climb to fame were convinced that public awareness of his autism would be unhelpful to book sales. He was not only strongly discouraged from going public about having ASD but a whole other persona was created for him instead. Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine if you could erase all dialogue, all faces from your dreams yet still have deep, meaningful dreams, even more so.

Imagine a world that is purely spatial, logical, a 3D world in which you exist as a bodyless entity, as if you have entered the pure cognitive workings of your own brain. Read the rest of this entry »

He broke up with his girlfriend. She was seeing an older man. So he shot 32 people on a Virginia college campus.

Illogical?

Somehow not to him. But how? Read the rest of this entry »

Ah, a brave new world indeed. Read the rest of this entry »

With up to 60% of people with Asperger’s Syndrome reporting being bullied in secondary schools on a daily basis we have an epidemic of intolerance which points at a currently undiagnosed and far more widespread and damaging pathology than Asperger’s Syndrome will ever be. Others reports put figures at closer to 90%. Read the rest of this entry »

Congratulations Four Corners.The US government may have gagged Australian, David Hicks, illegally imprisoned for five years, tortured and kept in solitary confinement for something that was no crime when arrested nor any crime under Australian law, but you, Four Corners, you have been a voice of the voiceless. Read the rest of this entry »

The local paper isn’t usually the place one expects riveting news but I was this week it was. Read the rest of this entry »

Our friend and wonderfully sharp, witty, blogger, Chris Borthwick, wrote an interesting entry about Phillip Ruddock’s foot-in-mouth episode regarding the illegal detention of David Hicks. Read the rest of this entry »

The room was noisy and a chicken coup. People mingled, glasses in hand, smiley, interested heads bobbing. My husband Chris and I hugged our chairs in a quiet, rather solitary space outside of the hub-bub. A waitress came around with canapes. It sounds like canned apes, but no, in fact its little hors d’oeuvres – kind of said, ‘horses doovers’ – consisting of mini pastry things with artistically stuffed contents, and pretty much all but one shaslik containing dairy and or gluten. No snackos for me then. Read the rest of this entry »