Artistic Autistic [antikvár]

IIMTRODUCTIONART-MAKINGThe desire to create is intrinsic to my nature - be it drawing, making tilings, writing, DIY or gardening. In a sense I am an introverted extrovert, expressing inner things outwardly. I am an amateur artist, an outsider artist, largely self-taught, figuring out how to do things on my own and in my own idiosyncratic way. Sometimes this works, and sometimes it does not, but in either event one learns.I don't draw from memory as for me this is indistinct and unstable, ever-changing and active, not fixed. Often when I draw I do not know what it is that I shall draw, only a vague idea of what I want to draw. In a sense I draw blind, feeling my way along until the drawing finishes itself.I do not own a computer and have extremely limited computer skills, regarding myself as 'computer illiterate'. Instead, I do things in the old-fashioned way - 'hand, eye, brain'. Part of this is innate, and part is self-taught through experience.I consider my artwork as much a subconscious as a conscious process. I think it may be a form of introverted abstract expressionism.I like patterns, detail and geometry.If asked what I get from my art, I may find it hard to give a single answer It is more for my collection, my portfolio of work. And an artist may be defined by their body of work, what they have done, what they are currently doing. There are so many aspects to art.What I like about art is the process of doing. My brain is fully engaged, active and in problem-solving mode. Completion of a work produces an end result, but in a sense there is an anti-climax as one is no longer active and engaged.Art, for me, is also therapeutic. I had a very difficult, unhappy time at school, trying to sun/ive in a hostile, frightening, unfriendly environment. I used drawing as a survival strategy, a coping mechanism to problem-solve, to work out frustrations, to protect myself, to create a safe place to be and be myself in - consciously expressing these anxieties by drawing on paper My drawing style atthattime was very similar to drawings I have seen done by children who experience 'manic depressive illness'. Although I may be prone to melancholy and depression, I am never manic; I am more hypo than hyper in nature.During a period of depression in 1979, a psychologist in his case notes wrote 'Peter seems to be dropping out of life.' At the time, I wondered how I could be dropping out of what I had not been part of in the first place. In any event, my art was about the only thing I was interested in.For me, it was self-therapy pure and simple. It was keeping me alive. Again, I was using it to problem-solve, work out frustrations, anxieties, fears and inner demons, as 1 had used it at school. But my style of drawing had changed from my style at school, perhaps because I had grown and developed, since those earlier scribblings. My drawing style does change over time, as I do.Art, then, may be many things - therapeutic, problem-solving, self-expression, freedom, a place of safety, somewhere to be and be myself in. Perhaps, too, it may be a form of escapism, far from the maddening crowd, away from the world, everything and everyone.m