I am by nature a punctual person, time-wise, but not date-wise. I can't keep a date in my head to save my life. I am frequently on time for appointments, only to find that I'm there on the wrong day. So it is fitting that it occurred to me yesterday to look up when World Autism Awareness Day is, seeing that April is Autism Awareness Month.
It was April 2nd. Rats. And I still owe my nephew a gift for his February birthday that I missed. Double rats.
My very first diary on DKos was on World Autism Awareness Day, oh how my fingers quaked when I hit that publish button! You never forget your first time. Here are links to my previous two World Autism Awareness Day diaries, if you have an interest.
My World Autism Awareness Day Diary
Parenting a Child With Autism-Happy World Autism Awareness Day Eve!
And here is a link, if you have an interest, to Ellie's website, which has been woefully neglected of late. I hear it calling out to me in doleful tones from time to time, asking to be updated with some of Ellie's fantastic recent art, or at least a blog entry. I will get to it soon, I swear:
www.EllieCastellanos.com
If I am very brave I might try and figure out how to add something of hers to this very diary. I did it once (added photos), but it was in the old DKos, and anyways I've forgotten how, maybe I'll take the time to try and figure it out.
Without further ado, on to the diary!
Hah! I figured it out, it's the same as the old DKos, shouldn't they have made it easier?
I was trying to decide what I would write about today, so maybe in honor of World Autism Awareness Day I'll talk about the many and varied talents of our autistic brethren, and when speaking specifically of my autistic daughter, that conversation would be about art. Talking about Ellie's art inevitably leads to other autism related topics, as well, so this could work nicely.
First, a small introduction to my daughter for those of you who haven't read my diaries before (I think there are a few). My daughter Ellie will turn eleven in a few days, and she has autism. It has been and will always be quite a journey being her mom, but lately the news has mostly been good with her, so I'm feeling lighthearted at the moment. In days past, her behavior led us to be virtual shut-ins, and we were all pretty unhappy. There was a very, very bad vacation to Mendocino one year that we mention in passing from time to time and can only shake our heads. That was maybe our lowest point with Ellie. But since then she has been on a steady track of improvement, behaviorally, educationally, and independently (that doesn't make sense, but I think you know what I mean).
Speak of the devil, my girl just woke up, I know that because I hear her funny high pitched singing coming from her room. A friend once remarked that we should all be so lucky to wake up every day with a song in our heart. It's true.
Ellie's artistic bent started very early, with found art projects. I started to photograph them when she was three, you can find the pictures on her website. They were hilarious and so representative of autism--she saw everyday objects in totally different ways than we do. She saw them not for what they were used for but for what they looked like, in a very pure visual way. My favorite found art project has no photo, since I only heard about it from a friend after we had left their house. My friend had been missing a retainer for a few days, and found it in a spare room. The retainer was used as a saddle on a frog, with a cowboy riding on top. The proportions were exactly right. My friend had walked by the retainer she had been searching for a dozen times and didn't see it, because it looked like a saddle that belonged on that frog.
She started drawing on the computer at about four, I think. She somehow found MS Paint and figured out how to use it. Then she figured out how to use it so well that I'm pretty sure she invented some uses the creators never intended. She could enlarge and shrink certain elements of the drawing to insert great little miniatures into her full sized drawings.
Now she uses Pixie. She still does some traditional drawing, like this:
I'd like to point out a few things. Shadows, movement, details like the pinwheel, conveying emotion in simple lines and shapes, perspective. Maybe I'm just a proud mama, but I don't know many eleven year olds that can do that, untrained, with a computer.
Pixie is fun because you can add "stickers" to your drawings, like she did in this one.
Again, notice the reflections on Dipsy and La-la's space helmets. Look at their ears--could you draw the back of an animal with the ears in perspective where they're supposed to be? I couldn't.
But her favorite thing to do lately is combine her two loves. Photography and drawing. I'm going to share this one despite my best judgment, because I normally would never post a picture of myself, and it's a really bad picture. It needs to be shared, however, for three reasons. One, it's hilarious, and shows her wicked sense of humor. Two, it is a perfect example of how Ellie communicates through her art. Three, it leads me to discuss Ellie's love of foreign cartoons. This photo was on the hard drive of our computer. After I refused to allow Ellie to eat Goldfish crackers for breakfast, I found it on my laptop, sitting there waiting for me.
I nearly pissed my pants I was laughing so hard. The bunny is a Belgian (Flemish, to be more precise) bunny named Hopla. You can only find Hopla in the states on DVD's from time to time. Ellie found him on YouTube, along with a Korean penguin named Pororo and a German bear named Musti. Ellie can sing the theme songs in Korean and German, no joke. Hopla only has an instrumental theme song. She watches these cartoons in their original languages, and I've come to believe that she truly hears no difference between English, Flemish, Korean or German. It's all gibberish to her, so what's the difference? She derives meaning from context, not languages.
I'm fascinated by her and her brain. I seriously believe someone needs to do an intensive study just on my girl and how her brain functions. Of course, the thing about autistic people is that they are ALL fascinating and unusual and help us understand our own humanity and creativity and genius.
Here are a few more examples of Ellie's photo/drawing mashups:
I'll enlarge this one so you can see who visited us for Christmas, at least in Ellie's imagination:
See him? Second window from the left.
Okay, because this diary has gotten awfully long, just one last one. I just love this one. I call it "Hopla Noir"
I don't know how she did it. She obviously used some kind of filter from the Pixie program, but that is one of her photographs manipulated to a fantastic degree and drawn upon. She's a genius, as far as I'm concerned.
I have purchased photoshop for her, but getting Ellie to use new technology is tricky, getting Ellie to do anything is tricky. Ellie will do things exactly whenever and wherever she pleases. So, from time to time, I leave photoshop open on the laptop, with a favorite photo of hers in the screen, ready for her to work with. I haven't had any luck yet, but she's mastered Pixie to such a degree that I'll let her decide when and where it's best to move on up the technology ladder.
This was the most fun I've ever had writing a diary. I could go on and on, but sometimes enough is enough!
Happy Late World Autism Awareness Day, everyone. My kids are late for school. :)