Katherine Kasper is a reader on the spectrum who read the third book in my autobiographical series, Like Colour To The Blind. When she emailed me about the book I offered her the opportunity to send me 10 interview questions about it. Here’s that interview. 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
I’ve decided to start a new monthly feature called art work of the month. I’m going to pick out one of my works and tell you the story behind it and its production. Hope you come to enjoy the feature and if you are also an artist, feel free to use the comments section to tell people a story about your own ARTism and don’t forget to check out the sites of the many artists listed over at http://www.auties.org.
The art work featured here is called Back to Normality . It’s part of a series which includes the works Imaginary Friend, Here They Come and The Lunatic. Read the rest of this entry »
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
 Belinda is a student doing the last year of a professional doctorate in clinical psychology. She has already completed a bachelor in behavioral neuroscience and postgraduate diploma in psychology. Her research project is investigating relationships and attraction among individuals with an Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC). The focus of her study is to explore attraction between those with an ASD and non-spectrum people to establish:
– What non-spectrum individuals find attractive in partners with an ASC
– What differences exist in the ratings of initial attraction between non-spectrum individuals with an ASC partner versus non-spectrum individuals with non-spectrum partner
– What individuals with an ASC find attractive in non-spectrum partners
I’ve invited her to send me 5 questions based on her research interest. Here’s that interview: Read the rest of this entry »
THE BUTTERFLY CLUB
presents…Donna & The Aspinauts play at The Butterfly Club, Melbourne’s swanky home of camp kitsch, in an evening of irreverent avant-garde poetry and flamboyant musical surrealism with a satirical bent.
Dare to be there.
Wednesday 4th March 2009
8pm-9pm
Cost: $22
The Butterfly Club
204 Bank St, South Melbourne
For bookings, email: info@thebutterflyclub.com
other enquiries: phone (03)9690 2000
http://www.thebutterflyclub.com/
  OK, so you’re face blind, a little meaning deaf, maybe you have social-emotional agnosia and can’t read facial expression or body language to save your life or are as literal as a real life Mr Spock. Would you be a little socially phobia? Have a little social anxiety? Struggle socially in the mainstream?
Well, how do a bunch of autistic people with this stuff rock up to a popular live music venue in the inner city and hang out among a crowd of potentially largely non-autism-spectrum people? Read the rest of this entry »
 I’ve run 48 hour poetry challenges for over a year and they were really popular. But many people didn’t get their challenges in in the 48 hour window. So for 2009, I’m doing it differently. You now have 30 days to send in your poetry challenges. So of you go – feel free to send me a TITLE or THEME to write to in the comments section and in the next 30 days, you’ll find I’ve responded by posting a poem here addressing it.  Come on, give it a try. Read the rest of this entry »
 Hi friends, colleagues and enthusiasts!
It’s Christmas and what a year! 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 .