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 193

Wednesday, March 30, 2011


Today I watched Larry and Tracy from the documentary Wretches & Jabberers on The New York Times' live stream TimesTalks. Here are a couple of their responses:

Larry, what do you express with your art?

"Potentially I might be called an outsider artist giving me cache in the art world, but I really paint from the inside institutions that I feel in my world as an autistic person making art to meet images with feelings."


Tracy, when did you realize that you had communication problems and how did it make you feel?

"That was going back to my earliest memory as a young boy. I knew I was not like other kids. It made me angry and I withdrew. I had tantrums. As a result not being able to show I understood was a jail sentence."

Overall, it was a great lecture. Can't wait to see the film. If you're interested, you can also look at our tweets.

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