I’m continuing to process my brother Mike’s* predicament. I visually paraphrased a picture from Mike’s youth to the latest image I captured during a video conference with Mike’s healthcare team. The snake/lifeline/breathing-tube imagery imperfectly divides the two portraits.(See other recent posts for other efforts at visual processing Mike’s condition.) [Note: Apologies – have not yet […]
My older brother Mike doesn’t know he’s in trouble. Mike is low functioning, autistic and has never spoken. He is inwardly directed, if that concept even makes sense for him. I spent many years trying to understand my brother and, I don’t know him any better than I did 60 years ago. Mike breathes in […]
Mike is still with us or, (more accurately) with himself. Mike is my older autistic brother, who is autistic and low functioning. During most of his life he was inwardly directed, although he would take your hand sometimes, to get you to open a door to go where he wanted, or to direct you to […]
This is one of the layered, complex (overdone?) sketches of Mike’s* situation. * Mike is my older brother (autistic, nonverbal and low functioning). He has been on a ventilator for more than a year. Now, it seems, he cannot be safely removed.
My drawings (as yet unposted here) have been getting more and more complicated. Layer upon layer of thoughts, when made visible, crowd the paper and dilute the focus. However, the point of layering is to get the thoughts on paper. I kept today’s sketch simple. I emphasized Mike’s face. The ventilator connection is subtle and […]
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 […]
I thank all of you who have been reading my book for the past couple of months. This is the last of it. I hope you have taken something away from this presentation. best to all, Brother Jack
This is an updated picture (circa 1993) from the photo my Dad took in the 1950s, found here.
This is the second scrapbook I presented in this book about my brother. Here is the first: Scrapbook from Mike’s toddler days.
