In 1998 my youngest brother, Kelton, was diagnosed with autism, a developmental disability that affects communication and social interaction. Autism currently affects 1/88 people in the United States. Kelton is a talented individual who runs cross-country and track, wrestles, plays the drums, loves history, and collects bobble heads and keychains.

This year Kelton decided to enroll in his first art class where he discovered his skill for drawing. His unorthodox style made me reconsider my artwork and examine the differences and similarities that exist between our perspectives. According to Paul Collins’ Not Even Wrong: Adventures in Autism, artists are four times more likely to have autism in their families. Considering the number of artists in my family, this statistic made me question the similarities that exist between Kelton and me. For this reason, we have decided to draw one of his 6,481 keychains a day for one year. These drawings will be as simple and uninhibited as possible. This project will explore our individual perspectives and examine the similarities that exist between us as artists.

Day 71


Squeezing: Kelt's coping mechanism

Autism mostly affects behaviors that are associated with communication and social interaction. These social impairments create a unique perspective that make it difficult for people with autism to relate to others. This phenomenon violates the Theory of Mind, which creates a mutual understanding between conversational partners that the speaker and listener differ in their thoughts and perspectives. This creates the misunderstanding that communication partners perceive the situation in the same way, which can be frustrating when one cannot express his/her thoughts or understand the perspective of others. These social differences force people with autism to create coping mechanisms to protect themselves from the social obligations of our society that over-stimulate their senses and processing mechanisms. These coping mechanisms vary with each individual, but common behaviors include: small rituals, an attachment to objects, perseveration, jumping, pacing, hitting, pinching, making lists, and/or "acting out" movie or tv lines.
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