Autism and Love | Art versus Reality: Autism and love is a complicated dynamic. When it comes to artists, their attractions are not always straight forward. Often there is a lofty romantic idea, which has to be preserved at all cost. The physical person who inspires this idea may need to be “managed” in some sense. This individual may resent how they and their feelings are compartmentalized; but for the autistic, there may be no other way to love.
Autism, Love, and Grief: I have found many examples of gifted individuals who never fully recovered from the loss of a parent, and most often a mother. In examining these individuals closely, they exhibit autistic traits. How these survivors dealt uniquely with grief may be a good indicator that they were on the spectrum.
As I describe in my latest novel: “The way into the autistic heart may be narrow, where few may enter; and none may leave.”
H. R. Giger and The Good Life: It is easy to romanticize the life of a famous artist when what motivates them is not fame but a work ethic. And it is harder to believe that an artist might reach an end point in their career, and choose to walk away or ease themselves out of the picture.
I see synchronicities everywhere in my life. In the course of watching a documentary that followed H. R. Giger through the last months of his life, I was working out an arrangement for a favorite tune with a view toward turning it into a video. A connection leapt to my mind, and so here is the marriage of two similar moods.
As I describe in my latest novel: “The way into the autistic heart may be narrow, where few may enter; and none may leave.”
Catalepsy (A Parable): This is the second of a quartet of short animations reformatted for YouTube. These films date from the early 2010s. Here, cartoon cats with personality disorders dictate the terms of their relationships with humans. Allusions to space chimps provide inscrutable subtext.
Humanized animals were a frequent subject of my “Profiles in Confusion” comic strips from this same time period.
Lemon-Glazed Landscape: Inspiration for art may come from anywhere. An idea may live in you brain rent free for a while until enough pieces of it come together. Once you have exorcized it from your system—that is, set it down on canvas or paper—then you can move on.
As I describe in my latest novel: “The way into the autistic heart may be narrow, where few may enter; and none may leave.”
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