art and design

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I am a support worker and this year i will be working with an undergraduate who has asperger's. His subject area is art and design. I'd welcome any information that would enable me to be as much help as possible.

Welcome to WP!

Tim

Part of my remit is to help my client express his design ideas, I want sugestions as to how I can do this.

sorry if the post is on the wrong board

Dee

What kind of art would he be studying? (painting, sculpture, etc.)

Tim

My client's main interest is fine art, he is a first year undergraduate, his modules are photgraphy and video core, Critical Studies and Introduction to Fine Art. He is interested in painting and at College was given the opportunity to work with clay and experiment with photography. which he enjoyed. Producing a finshed article doesn't seem to be a problem but writing up the process of his work might be as he says the project he's working on formulates in the back of his mind and comes out as a complete idea the steps of which he is unaware.

Thank you for your time
Daphne

Well I am a self diagnosed artist, painter and feel touched by what you have wrote about your student. Personally I diagnosed myself with having aspergers syndrome but was told I havn't got it because I have an imagination but thats a different story.

I went to college to do a art and design foundation course but as time passed by it became quite apparent that the whole curriculum was based on certain methods that completely clashed against the way in which I connect and develop artwork. It seems that your student works naturally through a naturally automated process in which he creates spontaneously through raw sensual motive. Remember he will see all and everything and art may consist of very deep inner image that come from something totally disconnected from inner words, maybe even things that words can't explain.

In the end I had to leave college and learn myself which as pulled off no end and I think education will only pressure to for a limited time end his passion for art. At times I will paint from the minds eye and thats all that matters to me, when I have finished thats the time to write about the result but insider art teaching thinks that art needs to be thought about and carefully planned to have any merit because of the new idea of conception. He will be aware of the steps but they will be like a video within his memory and to write about would be deemed a waste of energy. And also to him the visuals mean loads more.

What will help is if he records his thoughts through a microphone when he his actually producing the work or if he don't like the distraction, regular brief mock interviews in which you or someone else can ask him about his great work and he will need slight encouragement and merits to his work. Plus keep him protected by the art tutors who will try and make him work through sad procedures of planning and theory towards things.

Also introduce him to other artists who have also worked from intuition and automation. maybe surrealism would suit him or even abstract expressionism. Outsider art is also a possible starting point which wont do well with the college but will do him well for when he has to unlearn everything that the college as taught him.

I wish him the best of luck with his art and hope that he may gain confidence to sell himself one day which is something I still struggle with today.

Best of luck

Nebula