Drawing with Peter: Autobiography, Narrative, and the Art of a Child with Autism

Abstract

Introduction Drawing and Talking Peter was diagnosed as having high functioning autism after he failed to acquire language by the age of 3 years. Susan, his mother, began to draw pictures with him, in hope that these images might provide a link between the life of their family and the chaotic, tantrum-wracked world of her son, in a manner that language had not been able to do. Using a pencil on ordinary, lined notebook paper, Susan repeatedly drew the floor plan of their house, the location and shape of the objects in it, as well as characters in movies that Peter enjoyed, especially his favorite, The Wizard of Oz Susan's plans, maps, images, and her words that accompanied them, were an attempt to not only introduce Peter to language, but also to entice him to take part in the world around him. Susan's use of language and drawing did not lead to immediate success, however. One day Peter lost his teddy bear somewhere in the house. Susan, who knew the bear lay on the kitchen table, drew a rough plan of their dwelling, talking about each room and its pieces of furniture, stressing locations and relationships among the various parts and objects. Finally, she drew the table, enumerating its characteristics and indicating its location. He found the table all right, she ruefully remarked. But he never did find that big, old bear. This incident from Peter's early life goes directly to the heart of the matter, for it describes his introduction to image as map, as communication, and as a means to engage the world itself, even before he himself could pick up a pencil. It was in this manner that drawing as both tool and as alternative world first took root in Peter's life at the age of three. It developed over time into his most complex expressive language as well as his most absorbing activity. Now, at the age of 8, Peter's drawings are astonishing in both their quantity and variety as evidenced by the hundreds of drawings collected by his mother since the beginning of his art making. These include: (a) intense, jagged-pen or pencil sketches which form the bulk of his output created, during outbursts of agitation and rage; (b) carefully worked, schematic images of favorite stories that imply 3-dimensionality created in colored marker or pencil; (c) fully resolved line drawings often emphasizing motion, foreshortening, and other 3-dimensional qualities of characters from books or movies; (d) fanciful, 2-dimensional depictions in colored or graphite pencil of his favorite authors or domestic scenes grounded in reality. This wide variety of simultaneously created drawing styles, line qualities, spatial considerations, and topics evokes an almost irresistible desire to enquire into the origins and meanings of such diversity in the work of a single young artist with autism. At the same time, each type of drawing seems to be linked to a particular style. What might such linkages tell us? What might explain the different stylistic categories? How does art seem to function for Peter? What does Peter's art suggest for the autistic child artist? What do Peter's drawings suggest about art itself? For the past several years I have been documenting the art of children with autism in an anthropological manner, using a phenomenological approach to the interpretation of data to create case studies that focus on the child as an artist, rather than as an example of a handicapping condition. This is a new approach to research and interpretation about children with autism and their art, for it looks at the child with autism as a valid artist who is able to develop a visual vocabulary that seems to both create and express meaning for the child and, at the same time, provide insight into the child's world. This more individual, child by child, case by case approach builds over time an understanding of possibility that had, for the most part, not existed before. It shifts the focus of research away from the description of a child's struggles with a developmental disorder, or wonder at the juxtaposition of great artistic facility and personal difficulties, or an impersonal group inquiry, or a survey of symptoms, to consider the child we have before us now, as a purposeful individual and creative being. …