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Review
Kellman, Julia. (2001). Autism, Art, and Children:
The
Stories We Draw.
Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.
160 pages
$52.95 ISBN: 0-89789-735-8
Reviewed by Sally Gradle
University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign
The
Queen of Makeup, Peter, age eight, marker on paper.
Used
with the
author’s permission.
Author Julia Kellman has honed a thoughtful
craft
of reflection in Autism, Art, and Children
(2001). We are
transported into a realm where sense making in art requires
diligent interpretation of experience if one is to
understand the
autistic child artist. Gone are the more familiar methods
that
help us examine child art; such as dialogue with young
artists or
observations of social engagement in art
making. Furthermore, we
must free ourselves from the logic bound constraints of
science
in order to plumb the depths of meaning in this uncharted
territory. This may best be accomplished by adopting a more
natural narrative to construct meaning that is a
“creative,
fluid undertaking;” Kellman
suggests, “…for it
is in the flow of events and lived experience that children
and
art making come together” (p. 4). The author’s
discussion of intersubjective meaning, as defined by
Zurmuehlen,
Coles, and Schutz, reveals a belief that the stories we
tell each
other and ourselves allow for sense making in our
lives.
This established, Kellman leads us on to her particular
intentions in this research. Her approach is
phenomenological
and anthropological; one that will focus on case studies of
autistic children as valid child artists rather than
disabled
students. This tack has a hidden strength: through
narrative,
the phenomena of experiences engage us in looking at these
unusual artists in ways that a more objective, rational
approach
might discount. This broad based observational stance has
afforded Kellman the opportunities to learn from the worlds
of
others through a larger array of observable events, rather
than
limiting her vantage to defining and labeling behaviors of
disabled artists.
In the second chapter, Kellman continues her positive
observations; citing several shared characteristics that
exemplify precocious autistic art makers. Early or sudden
onset
of drawing skills, content that is visually based, and a
descriptive style that defines and structures their art
through
the use of line are among these interesting
characteristics.
Because the world of autistic children is isolated from the
sociocultural engagement that occurs in usual interactions,
Kellman suggests that moments of visual learning are
“made
longer and more accessible to them by autism” (p.
17).
Without the self-awareness and the dictates of a peer-enhanced,
circumscribed social world, the autistic artist is more
open to
the sense of “now.” While Kellman is not
suggesting
that this explains all autistic creation, she does set the
stage
for further elaboration about particular case studies.
Living Room, Jamie, age seven, ballpoint on paper.
Used with the author’s permission.
We meet, for example, a young man at a center for
disabled
adults who repeats zigzag markings on sheet after sheet of
paper
while looking anywhere but his work. He is apparently
satisfied
with this repetitious visual outcome. Kellman poses an
interesting question that the reader may be asking as well
at
this point. Does this scenario offer insight into how
autistic
and non-autistic artists see? To answer, Kellman turns to
research on the brain, citing neurobiologist David
Marr’s
((1982) explanations for how the brain develops. Art that
exploits early vision, characteristic of the autistic child
artist, “emphasizes the process’s attributes in
regard to the structure, location in space, and
directionality of
objects,” Kellman informs us (p. 25). The
unconceptual
nature of autistic art, coupled with the visual acuity of
the
artist in apprehending structures of forms in three
dimensional
space, link them with other visual thinkers who organize
their
worlds spatially. Kellman further clarifies this with the
example of autistic designer and researcher, Temple
Grandin, who
enlightens the reader, saying that relationships made
little
sense to her until she began to visualize them as a series
of
doors and windows one must open and close in social
interactions
(p.29).
Stairway, The towering
Inferno, Jamie, age seven, pencil on paper.
Used with the
author’s
permission.
Continuing to build on the strengths of such
visual thinking, we are introduced to Jamie, the
architectural
planner who is a gifted shaper of spaces, one who defines
whole
worlds of detailed interiors such as elevators, car
engines, and
ventilating systems. Through his work, we see that the
relationship of form to meaning is essential. Kellman
informs us
that it establishes a structure which allows feelings to be
shared. The less culturally derived lens of the autistic
artist
thus forms a unique art expression—one which we could
easily dismiss—without Kellman’s narratives
illustrating how seeing is a “prelinguisitic
undertaking” (p. 32) that anchors all of our meaning
making. “For art in its very substance and structure
provides individual artists—Jamie and others--with a
sense
of mastery, meaning and coherence at the same time that it
affords viewers a glimpse of artistic resolve and personal
narrative” (p. 48).
In a similar manner, we are introduced to Peter, Katie,
and
Mark; each of whom illustrate ways of being with art that
acknowledge the importance of image as it becomes a
meaningful
text of their lives through a language of
form. Kellman’s
prose is precise, and wonderfully descriptive of behavior:
“...when I patted his shoulder in thanks for a job
well
done, he winced, dropping down and sideways to avoid my
hand. It
was as if I had burned him” (p. 44). “Tongue
clicks,
hums, and a long, deep bell-like tone suggesting a movie
soundtrack composed to describe deep space or perhaps to
imitate
the sound of distance chanting Tibetan monks also accompany
the
shouted warnings and commands” (p. 80).
Characters from The Wizard of Oz, Peter, age
seven,
ballpoint on paper
Used with the author’s permission
With a thorough investigation of the research on the
causes
and diagnostic trends of autism in children, Kellman
grounds her
observations in further evidence from genetics, embryology,
and
neurobiology. Although she notes that no single cause or
definitive answers have been uncovered, Kellman suggests
that
“the cascading events that cause changes in the early
developing fetus likely produce the condition of
autism”
(p. 102). She observes that the exemplars of this study
could
well inform us of the role the qualities of autism play in
the
making of art. As a marker of experience, “the
momentary,
the individual, and the particular” can be understood
as
“preattentive aspects of the vision
process” (p.
103).
So what are we to take away from this insightful book?
Clearly, we are now freed from the bondage of
meaning-as-social-construction alone. Some other
construction of
meaning is possible in the hidden realm of autistic,
artistic
vision. Likewise, we have learned that language by itself
is
insufficient in guiding our interpretation of this visual
narration. We must examine in context how it is lived by
the
artist as an internal expression made visible. As Kellman
suggests, it is as though “Orpheus singing into being
the
very actions of a world” (p. 84), retrieves meaning
from a
place and establishes through such artful action that which
is
common to us all. Finally, this study is both positive and
hopeful: acknowledging the strengths of the autistic
artists
rather than their more usual description of need. There is
much
we have yet to understand through further study and
reflection on
the art of the precocious artist child. However, as
philosopher
Paul Ricouer (1965) states, “[The] recuperative
reflection
is certainly the philosophical impact of hope, no longer
the
category of the “not yet” but in that of the
“from now on” (pp. 12-13). Autism, Art and
Children shares insight and inquiry from just such a
viewpoint.
Reference
Ricouer, P. (1965). History and Truth. (C. A.
Kelbley,
Trans.), Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
About the Reviewer
Sally Gradle is a doctoral student in Art
Education at
the University of Illinois, and a veteran art teacher in
the
local public schools. She is interested in documenting
artists’ encounters with the sacred in their work and
has
presented her work in AERA and NAEA.
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