My watercolors for the past two days (Resting Position and Resting Hands Revisited) have been gestures from a photograph of Mike and one of his classmates, M___, at their Day Program. Mike, my older brother, is autistic, very low functioning and nonverbal. Today’s study In today’s study I portray the hands of my brother. His head is down […]
Yesterday’s watercolor study did not portray the emotion or feeling that I wanted. Although each hand position was fairly accurate, I think their relative positions contributed to my unhappiness. Today I was thinking about how to remedy the situation: Perhaps I could include more context. If the forearms or torso were presented, would that help? […]
Everybody has a position in which they are comfortable. I’m not sure if this is the case with the owner of the hands in today’s study. M___ was a classmate of my brother Michael at his Day Program. For those of you reading my blog for the first time, Mike is my older brother who is […]
Sensual eating How should I put this? Mike was always a sensual eater. Why use utensils when you can feel the texture in your hands? I suppose it adds to the complete culinary experience… assuming you have someone to clean up after you. Brief recap For those of you reading my blog for the first […]
Parties I used to go to some of the parties that Mike’s group home would arrange (see Halloween Party, Christmas Party). Mike is my older brother, who is autistic, very low functioning and nonverbal. They were experiences that I wouldn’t trade for anything. I had more than a few surprises at these events. For instance, I saw […]
Mike’s toy Mike’s favorite toy was a slinky. I took a photograph of him playing with it on one of my first visits to his Day Program. Mike is my older brother. He is autistic, low functioning and nonverbal. After living in a large institution for a good portion of his life, Mike was placed […]
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 […]
One of the photos of my brother captured him trying to get me to do something for him. He took my arm as if it was my handle, like some kind of teapot. I wrote a post about this occasion a back in September (2013). Mike is autistic, very low functioning and nonverbal. Since Mike doesn’t […]
Reexamining old photos I’ve been looking through my old photos with the idea of finding expressive and meaningful hand gestures. The photo below is a frame from one of the home movies that my father must have taken. We were on vacation in the late 1950s or early 1960s. I’m pretty sure of the date […]
Holding hands is one way of showing intimacy… assuming the hands belong to different people. Holding one’s own hand can have other meanings; I don’t think that intimacy is one of them, however. That could be a good blog post, but not what I had in mind for today. My older brother Mike is autistic, […]
