Making through autistic stimming by Elinor Rowlands

This practice PhD will look at new insight into artistic methodology through the lens of autistic stimming, a self-regulating mechanism. The act of stimming is often the only way autistic people can exist or function in the world (Charlton et al. 2020; Kapp et al., 2019), yet it is often vilified by professionals/society as a behaviour that affects autistic people in negative ways and must be prevented (Boyd et al. 2012). During art-making, stimming provides a quilting point between an autistic person and their body. The margins of what constitutes imaginative creative practice is varied and wide, yet there is a knowledge gap in the understanding of how the qualities of autistic and neurodivergent people, and the emotional and sensory chaos that is associated with their experience can be positively employed and harnessed into productive creativity within Visual Arts. This research identifies a contribution to knowledge from an autistic perspective. To explore the qualitative dimension of stimming, a new body of work will be produced, testing it through public facing and interactive processes of exhibitions and screenings. Through collaborative practice in workshops and events at NTU and other research methods, a thorough literature review will be explored. Case studies on other autistic artists who use stimming in their practice will highlight how stimming opens up a wealth of creative possibilities. Additionally a toolkit will be produced offering interactive resources for new insights into artistic methods/methodologies and for good practice for arts organisations working with autistic/neurodivergent artists.

Case Study Autistic Artists

Within "artists" there are musicians, writers and artists.

Artists/Writers

Artist 1

Artist 2 - Dropped out in February 2023 but gave permission for the first collaborated poem.

Artist 3

Artist 4

Musicians

Artist 5

Artist 6

Artist 7

First Stimming Session - 1st December 2022

2 artists with their own individual practices spend 10 minutes writing/stimming together with Elinor.

The practice of stimming through art practice is different to simply writing together, the space is held to make stimming possible through practice

Artist 1, when she writes through stimming, her eyes are half shut, she purrs, she hums, and she moves in figure of 8s whilst sitting.

This was her poem:

Sniffcoughbofftoffaloft lofty parapets set against

internet zoom space room bass room base

tasting communication station

blip blip tip tip over and over and over and

lover lover boom bastic tastic elastic

paper clip holding together string winged words

on a plastic fantastic spaceship waiter of tables

timing rhyming timing stimming rimming along

swimming along along bong bong bang tosh tosh piffle sift sniffle pop

band wallop what a mixture sot snotty lotteries

we enter with disappointment disclaimers

don’t expect too much

touché the hand of God sod the reformers dormers

atop a stroppy estate lookout for the human race

trace the backlog in a device insert the stick mem

mem mem mory usb stick it to ‘em damn em bedazzle

begorrah bang bang tang tasty waste will emit flavours

fit for king of kings earthlings tingling at your feet

reet black breet street teetering top of the world girl

Christ now wallow’s in my head instead of waffty bafta winner

bastard screamer stopping starting staring out at us struggling

stragglers bagging the awards forging ahead while we

while I I the loser sit and moan and groan and whine

and wine in the glass bottle throttle shittle pittle

kissing the stink trinket mist fitting in with women

who are me who are thee …

Aritst 2 is a painter (artist) and finds it hard to write to make meaning, or finds that when she has something to say her intention or meaning is lost. It is only through collectively being in space, through stimming, does she find it possible to write. She had to drop out.

Misty Days

Searching

For peace

In the mist

Still searching

I am tired

Trying to find peace

Inside me

I like misty days

I have not found peace

I still enjoy

Searching in the mist

Searching

Elinor, I wrote with them, what I find interesting about writing and stimming through practice is how the collective unconscious (Jung) is at play. We often use similar words - often so random - it’s hard to believe that we aren’t looking over each other’s words.

She follows the words down corridors

She glides sand across her skin

She feels her name is sad today

She can’t feel her heart, her her heart, her, her heart deep within,

Within the sky up high the falling leaves below

The poetry on her mouth

Opening up her lips making out

Makeshift universes

Follow me outside

Tender as I like

Follow me outside

The hidden messages I write

I long for shore rain, rainfall cold, swept water

I long for shade from sun, freckle burn pop …

and hope.

Hopeful rising yawning falling I hope for grand tongue

The voices near me are magic

The mouths open are fed

The heart against mine so fast so hot so fast so hot so fast so hot so fast so hot so fast so hot the images before me pop,

The images in the fire burn the room like a cave, damp and cold and I from the room, pave out a story, poke out the sky

And I from the room breathe

My breath is hot, so fast, hot, so fast, hot, so fast, hot, so fast and I am alone in the room

I am alone in this bed

Alone in the trees existing around me colder still, still colder, still, still colder still and breathe.

Artist 3 - February 2022

We both wrote through stimming together over an hour together.

Cut from Cloth

Tapestries gaze down, pristine. Unlike rugs, they are never beaten for being dirty; they’re preserved, interlocking threads glistening... People stop, captivated by craftsmanship, allured by texture and immaculate stitchings... for a moment, they’re caught within patterns, before moving on... making their way to a rug.

Rugs are scuffed by the shuffle of shoe, coated with cat-hair, stained by wine, frequented by crumb. Tassels are knotted and paint-splattered from careless crafting, occasionally they're singed by stray embers spat from fireplaces; warm, strong fibres interweave family meals, pets, parties, kisses and christenings, their threaded roots entwining, infused to fabrics of everyday life.

Serine, the tapestry looks on, its wall cold.

Latitude, longitude and circumstance are all that separate them; tapestries are vertical rugs, rugs horizontal tapestries.... But, it's far easier for tapestries to frequent floors by sliding than it is for rugs to climb walls.

We're cut from the same cloth, but our tapestry has been rolled out upon the ground...

Let us now treat rooms as dice; their floor, ceiling, four walls, malleable, versatile, and roll again... see who comes out top.

Writer 4

Thanks for your insights, Elinor. I think this idea of writing as stimming, certainly experimental writing, is really accurate, and is reassuring to me about why my writing feels different and unable to be published in more mainstream places, and it's empowering to feel like my writing doesn't have to include the more traditional things like narrative, dialogue, character, etc, but can just be playing with words and describing things which is what I enjoy. The beat, the rhythm, the visceral imagery is definitely a big part of it. 'Not simply stream of consciousness' is exactly right, it's something else. Your connection of "naive" and "autistic" writing is inspiring, i am always a fan of any writing and art ive seen that gets described as naive. With regard to getting it published i don't know. Ive generally selfpublished or been published by friends, and i tend to prefer performing in a performance art scenario rather than the more formal literary recitals. I read this article recently, which might interest you, wonder what you think: https://www.marsreview.org/issue2/the-story-of-autism-how-we-got-here-how-we-heal-by-tao-lin-~dacten-sidlyn

Hi The heart is for everything you said but not for the article. I feel sad that he feels the need to cure himself of “autism”. This is a very ableist perspective of autism and goes into the “curing autism rhetoric” which is incredibly harmful.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful, instead, if non autistics found us magical? Powerful? Important? and were interested in our ways?

Here is an artist Megan, not autistic, who created a video in response to the writing workshop I ran from an autistic perspective for autistic female/non binary writers. She asked for permission to attend. It shows (perhaps for the first time, a non autistic taking a risk!) I used object permanence to support this idea of art and voice positioned in having a conversation together - and showed them different art pieces and asked them what the art piece wanted from voice and vice Versa https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HCV6BKKN2hk

I believe autism is an alternative form of consciousness and the article dismisses the power of the autistic consciousness. The article highlights the absolute desperation of the author to rid himself of his autism due to his absolute desperation to belong. (I suppose that is twinned to my desperation to be published in a poetry review though I come from a position of absolute frustration because I don’t quite understand what it is I am doing to be outsider or rejected from the mainstream.) I only know that the autistic diagnosis offered me relief and way of understanding why I was consistently rejected by society, so when someone next gets angry at me or calls me strange or weird I can say, “not weird… but autistic!” (And maybe also weird). It is our psyche that is inherently different and separate from non autistics. This is why we are so often feared, excluded, or sometimes if ppl see magic within us, put on a pedestal to tokenise autistic people. We stim to survive. My PhD researches from an angle of autistic people using stimming in practice as an artistic methodology and that if/when they tune into this power, their work not only becomes more prolific but there is an attuned energy at work between collaborators and it is something that can be taught to non autistics but first they must see the value in stimming as artistic methodology for autistic stimming is innate within the autistic artist/writer. The problem is that non autistics don’t see the value in autistic writing/art unless they can tokenise us but they’re not interested in learning from us or about our ways of making, creating, putting language, vocabulary together, our processes are shunned, we are not seen as professionals though we are, because non autistics cannot see the value in our processes or work. Everything is entirely seen from a mainstream/neurotypical lens and matched up to it. Actually, if anything, the poet Robert Graves got it spot on here (about autistic women… magical women.) https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/18/robert-graves-on-magical-women-archive-1968 I didn’t realise you have not been accepted by the mainstream, your writing is genius (to me). It takes my breath. I have to remember to breathe. Its heartbeat changes mine. I feel sad for the generations of autistic women writers who died by suicide because they never felt accepted by the literary world, it’s almost as if they need to die by suicide in order to be acclaimed. Stimming through writing/words: https://youtu.be/T7xxrn0sPGUhttps://youtu.be/94j1YGnBtrw

Artist 5

1. Watch from 14.49 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIFDgZEZ2tw This is whose PhD is on the aesthetics of ND language in writing, she was the one called naive by her superviso

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