Brother Mike, Bookends

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 […]

Brother Mike in Trouble

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 […]

Portrait of Mike with Ventilator Hook Up

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 […]

Portrait of Mike, and Thoughts

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 […]

Processing – Back to My Brother Michael

It has been quite a while since I published anything related to the original purpose of this blog: exploration of my relationship between my older brother and me – my connection with autism. I began this blog to describe the impact of having an autistic brother, who is nonverbal and low functioning. (I’ve been away […]

%d bloggers like this: