I continue with my self portrait series in this post. In yesterday’s Big Self Portrait, I was trying to illuminate my face from the bottom. Somehow the halloweenish grotesqueness of eerie shadows eluded me, but my main goal in that sketch was to use the entire page. Today’s self portrait reigns-in the size a bit (at […]
I don’t normally use my blog to solicit advice, particularly about personal matters. However William, my grandson is not yet two and a half and hasn’t started talking yet. He is not self-involved; he can identify colors and objects and points to them when asked; he knows what is going on around him. He seems to use the […]
Group home The gesture for today’s study also comes from a visit to Mike’s group home. For those of you just joining me, my older brother is autistic, very low functioning and nonverbal. Although he was home for the first 10 years of my life, that was decades ago, and yet having him as a […]
Contact It is a real thrill to make contact. We visited our grandchildren in October of last year. William turned 7 months old while we were there. He was quite different than when we first saw him, after he was born. Then, all he did was sleep. As I understand things, infants can’t see that […]
Process thus far My experiment with latex masking fluid is nearing an end. Although dripping can be fun, there is too much time needed for drying for the work to be spontaneous. I made some progress through The Art of Cézanne by Albert Barnes and Violette de Mazia. It seems that every few pages I want to […]
This is a difficult post to write. As many of you know, I began this blog as a continuation of my efforts to define my relationship with my older autistic brother. Mike is very low functioning as well as profoundly retarded. For 11 months I posted about what it was like for me as a […]
It is pure coincidence that today’s topic is the absurd. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that today is Thanksgiving. I would like to wish all my readers a happy and safe Thanksgiving. Be careful out there! Simple absurdity I love the Marx Brothers. Their humor is my kind of humor: plays […]
More processing Those of you following my blog know that I just returned from a visit to my brother Michael, who is autistic, profoundly retarded and nonverbal. In my past few posts I have detailed the visit and its disappointing outcome. I am trying to regroup, using my blog as a forum to articulate ideas […]
It seems that on this trip I am either starting something or ending something. I’m back in Chicago area, having ended a trip to New Jersey to see my original family, including Michael, my older autistic, profoundly retarded and nonverbal brother. I wasn’t hoping for a story book ending on our day trip to see […]
Today is the first time we actually traveled to Chicago proper. It was the tourist thing. I haven’t seen big old buildings in quite a while, certainly not in San Jose. I enjoyed seeing gargoyles again, and bricks that weren’t a quarter-inch thick and made of vinyl. The portrait I forgot my regular camera, so […]
