I had an idea yesterday, while watching a movie on TV. In the background, was a stylized portrait that was somewhat Picasso-like. I had just been reading about Francis Bacon (see yesterday’s blog) so I was sensitive to the power of art. I have been drawing for quite a while, but hardly ever do I […]
I was looking though some pictures today. (No surprise there, I’m either looking through old pictures, old writings, old… doesn’t-matter-what as long as it’s old and in my past.) I have boxes and boxes of photos of my big brother Mike. He is autistic, low functioning and has never spoken. I don’t even know what […]
Why would I take a photo like this? At the end of March of this year, I posted a very strange photograph of myself that I took during the course of a photography workshop in which I was enrolled (Portrait with Huge Misunderstanding). I had just embarked on a long-term project to portray my relationship […]
This picture is from a home movie. I took it from a TV set after the 8mm was transferred to videotape. The movie was made before 1961, since Mike went to Willowbrook about then. My brother Mike is autistic, low functioning and has never spoken. I am pushing Mike on the Irish Mail. The Irish […]
I was really surprised when I found a few panels of a comic strip that I must have drawn, about my brother, Michael. Mike is very low functioning, autistic and non-verbal. There is only one date in the notebook in which I scribbled my crude sketches. It dates to nearly 10 years ago. I had […]
I just got Unmasking the Face[1] today. One of the authors, Dr. Paul Ekman was a consultant for the TV show, ‘Lie to Me’, about a deception expert. I am excited for a several reasons: 1) maybe this book will help me better understand what people are feeling by learning the secrets of expressions, hidden […]
This is a self portrait I took, just before I went to visit Michael on his plane of existence. It looks just like I am evaporating; my sense of identity merging with the ether. But it isn’t. I went to visit Michael. It was good, but I can’t tell you any details about our time […]
As promised, an essay written circa 1996 about my older brother and me: I am an artist and my brother is an autist: Only one letter difference; two letters apart in the alphabet. If you speak with a New York accent, we are the same. When I was born, my big brother Michael was […]
