Sketching helps me.

I’ve used sketching and photography to try understanding my brother Michael. He is autistic, low functioning and nonverbal. I used photography to capture moments that may have escaped my notice and to better notice details about him. Sketching brings me a little deeper. It is a more direct connection. For example, the most striking detail about the photograph of Mike that I grabbed from the meeting with his care providers (see yesterday’s post), was his sunken mouth.

Somehow I could not draw his mouth sunken enough. I’m sure that the failure to be able to convey the impression of sunken-ness is somehow related to something in my subconscious. Teasing out the nature of sunken-ness in my brother’s face (through sketching) is one way I have, to process what is going on with him. Sketching for me, is striving for a meaningful image; it evokes thoughts, which feed back to the image.